Man Vs Machine In Chess - Who Is Winning?

FFriedel writes "In a few weeks, the world's strongest player Garry Kasparov will take on X3D Fritz in a high-profile man-machine chess match. Who is the statistical favourite? Since computers have been steadily improving and are now holding their own against the very strongest human players, one would think it may be Fritz. Not necessarily, says statistician Jeff Sonas, who doesn't believe computers will inevitably surpass the top humans, and presents empirical evidence to support his claim as part of a series of articles for ChessBase."

Comments

still

[toddhunter]

I consider it's still humans competing with other humans playing chess. On one hand we have a chess-master using all the power of his brain, on the other some computer people using a high-powered computer.
When a computer can learn to play chess by itself and then beat the top players, then we have something to look at.

naivity

[mOoZik]

It is simply naive to say computers will never be able to outdo human thought, such as that required for chess or other logic/pattern-recognition based tasks. This is analogous to 19th century Royal Society scientists claiming one could never escape the Earth's gravity into space and beyond (and providing "proof," mind you). But I digress. Chess is not so much about logic and thought (in the normal sense) as it is for pattern recognition and "looking ahead." The best chess players in the world have nearly memorized all the possible combinations in all the possible scenarios, contrary to popular belief that their abilities are innate. I don't know if software has evolved enough to beat him this time around, but if the second math was any indication, my money's on the machine.

a contradiction?

[X_Bones]

from the article:

"The red line is Garry Kasparov's rating over time, and the blue line is the rating of the top computers on the SSDF list. The blue line is creeping closer and closer to the red line. It seems just on the verge of crossing over. "

But then, further, down, he writes:

"Although computers obviously must be improving in recent years, the strongest humans seem to also be improving at about the same rate."

These two statements contradict each other, don't they? Either computers are improving faster than grand-masters, meaning the graph and its extraploations are true; or, computers and grand-masters are improving at the same rate, which would mean the percentage of human wins and draws would be generally the same as in previous years (something not indicated by the second graphic in the article)?

Sonas argument is silly

[phr1]

He says Deep Blue II hasn't been improved on since 1997 and therefore computers have maxed out. That's dumb. Deep Blue II hasn't been improved on because nobody has spent the bucks since then to improve on it. It's simply stronger than its successors, which is not surprising since DB2 used massive amounts of custom VLSI hardware built by PhD researchers with megabucks of IBM Research funding, while everything since then has been programs running on ordinary PC's programmed by small companies and hobbyists. PC's keep advancing but it will be a while before they catch up with what DB2's massive parallelism could do. It's also possible that chess hardware (maybe using FPGA's) will make a comeback.

Meanwhile, the fastest airplane ever built is still the SR-71A made in the 1960's. That doesn't mean aircraft technology has come to a standstill. It just means outrunning the SR-71A hasn't been a priority of aircraft builders since then. If they wanted to expend the resources to make a faster plane today, they could do it.

Deep Blue II was the SR-71A of chess computers. What's come afterwards has been a lot more economical and practical, but hasn't tried to match it in pure performance, and hasn't done so.

"No true human world champions"

[MacGabhain]

This is the constant claim of the meaning of computers outpacing humans at chess, and it's complete BS.
Machines have been outpacing humans in various endeavours for years. Eventually computers will be powerful enough and well programmed enough that they'll never lose (although they certainly will still draw).
Big deal. Either show me the sprinter who can beat a formula 1 or show me the movement to claim there are no longer human champions in speed. I don't see either of those, so I don't see why it should matter for a mental game.
I see no reason why we should care if computers can someday see all possible positions 35 moves out. Chess isn't about that. Chess is a game of reason, of insight, of spacial perception, of memory, of stamina (you try concentrating on one thing for 6 hours), and of emotion. Seeing forcing variations a dozen moves out is rarely part of the game for humans, and plenty of players have risen to the top of the game almost never calculating beyond 2 or 3 moves out. Giving a machine an 800HP engine and wheels takes absolutely nothing away from the human accomplishment of mastering the game.