Kasparov Draws Game 4 and Match Against X3D Fritz

jaydee77ca writes "Garry Kasparov survived opening danger and played very precise, technical chess to draw Game 4 with black against X3D Fritz. The final match result is a 2.0 - 2.0 draw, proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived."

Comments

Special.

[Rosonowski]

I dunno. The thing is, even though it didn't beat him outright all four games, it did beat him.

I think that's saying a whole hell of a lot, even if this is a specialized application.

Re:Special.

[wankledot]

It's saying a whole lot that it beat him? I would hope that a machine calculating trillions of moves would be able to. Like a lot of articles I've read, the machine can often pick excellent moves at any given time, but it lacks an understanding of the overall flow of the game, and big-picture strategy. Those kinds of things are hard to figure out for a machine without a soul, even with near-infinite cycles to spend. Until the machine can prove the game and calculate a way to draw every time no matter what moves the other person makes, I think a human will always have a good chance at beating the machine.

Re:Special.

[Hatta]

Chess is easy, get your openings and closings from a table and it's not too hard to brute force the middle. I'll only be impressed when a computer player can beat a competant go player.

Re:Special.

[CaptKilljoy]

The question in my mind is: Kasparov won the last two games. Had there been more than four games in the series, would X3D Fritz have won any games other than the initial two or has Kasparov figured out a strategy to beat Fritz?

Re:Special.

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are too stupid to play go. It's also quite hard for programmers to figure out where to start.

Re:Special.

[LostCluster]

Yes, but the one victory for X3D Fritz was made possible due to a blunder. Humans can choke sometimes, computers never do anything that stupid in one move. Of course, that's something we already knew.

Re:Special.

[Pieroxy]

"it did beat him"

Yes, but that proves one thing still: Humans can apply different strategy against different opponents, computers have yet to do that. I think Kasparov would have applied a different strategy playing a human player. That is something a computer is not capable of.

Plus, Kasparov lost the first game and then learned his opponent strategies, another thing computers are not capable of.

Re:Special.

[mr_sas]

you've got the results wrong, they were:
Game 1: Nov. 11
Kasparov 1/2 - 1/2 X3D Fritz

Game 2: Nov. 13
X3D Fritz 1 - 0 Kasparov

Game 3: Nov. 16
Kasparov 1 - 0 X3D Fritz

Game 4: Nov. 18
X3D Fritz1/2 - 1/2 Kasparov

Re:Special.

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I heard Kasparov did the chess equivalent of rm -Rf / in the game he lost. Plus, he was complaining after the game because the board was set up wrong when he arrived and got his concentration messed up.

Re:Special.

[An Onerous Coward]

Yeah, thank goodness for my soul. I'd hate to see how badly I sucked at chess if somebody extracted my soul.

I hate this sort of thinking. If the question is, "What is it that allows humans to think abstractly and formulate efficient and creative strategies in the face of novel situations?" answering, "a soul" is just sleight of hand to avoid admitting that we don't know. Positing that every human being has a soul explains nothing, and tells us nothing that we didn't already know. Slapping a label on a phenomenon isn't the same as providing an explanation.

Now, regarding "near-infinite cycles," ask your math teacher about the logic inherent in the phrase.

Re:Special.

[wankledot]

Sorry, "soul" was probably the wrong word. How about creative thinking, or non-linear thinking. To use a stupid coined term.. thinking outside the box.

The computer can think logically through all the possible answers, but maybe the real answer is something you have to see between the lines.

Re:Special.

[Hatta]

I had no intention of this being a troll. All I'm trying to say is that I can't see why we've chosen chess to be the measure of human intelligence vs. machine? I mean, that's why this is interesting right? Otherwise it's just another game. But the computer is just brute forcing it. By playing a more complex game, we can eliminate that and force the computer to stand on strategy. That will be something worth talking about.

Well, I've said my piece. Mod me down again if you like, there's more karma where that came from.

Re:Special.

[Best ID Ever!]

Actually, in the annotations to the game Kasparov won (#3), there are a couple moves that Kasparov makes that they attribute specifically to the fact that his opponent is a computer.

At one point it becomes clear (to observers) that Fritz's only chance is to attack a particular pawn, but Fritz doesn't see it because it's too far down the search space. Kasparov actually makes a move to protect the pawn to further muddle the search space. Fritz ends up doing not much of anything because it can't see that loss is imminent.

Re:Special.

[Rubyflame]

Well, that's not entirely true. Fritz was trained from Kasparov's games to play Anti-Kasparov chess, just like Kasparov was playing Anti-Computer chess.

Re:Special.

[NortWind]

If a having a soul is what lets a human win, then it appears only one person on the planet has a soul.

Re:Special.

[Pieroxy]

Fritz was trained from Kasparov's games

Hence, Fritz is disturbed when Kasparov changes its strategy and start playing a different kind of game. It cannot adapt.

Re:Special.

[iocat]

Kasparov only made one real error in the match, in game 2. If things had been just a bit different -- if he had taken a few more seconds, if a butterfly in Siberia had flapped its wings, etc -- Fritz probably would not have won any matches. Kasparov played excellent anti-computer chess; but a human (well, one who was really good at chess) could have beaten him in game three.

Re:Special.

[CaptKilljoy]

Sorry, "soul" was probably the wrong word. How about creative thinking, or non-linear thinking. To use a stupid coined term.. thinking outside the box.

The computer can think logically through all the possible answers, but maybe the real answer is something you have to see between the lines.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here; the brain is a computer of sorts, is it not? Reduce a person and a computer to subatomic particles, and you'll find they're made of exactly the same electrons, protons, neutrons, and the odd photon or two. If one of these two arrangements of particles can exhibit intelligent thought, why isn't it conceptually possible that the other too?

Re:Special.

[Tuxinatorium]

This doesn't prove that machine can't beat man. All this shows is what grandmasters have believed for years, that the game of chess is a theoretical draw if both sides play optimally. It's just too complex to mathematically prove it, like what was done for connect four. That game has been solved, and it's a win for the player who moves first.

Re:Special.

[Misanthropic Lycanth]

Whoa whoa whoa... the implication that computers never choke is entirely too strong. I'll submit that a computer will probably never make the same kind of mistakes that a human does (unless we achieve perfect AI), but a computer is still made of materials governed by the laws of physics. There is always a non-vanishing probability that a bit can be flipped, or a series of bits that avoid error detection. Now, whether or not this is the same as a human "choking" in the heat of the moment is a discussion about semantics.

Re:Special.

[ghjm]

Well, perhaps a human could have beaten him in game three *IF* he played the same anti-computer chess against the human in question. Presumably he would know he was playing against a human, and not waste moves on anti-computer techniques like that pawn move on the king's side.

It would be interesting to do a chess-based Turing Test. Have Kasparov play an exhibition with three simultaneous games, where he doesn't know which one is the computer. See if he can pick it out.

-Graham

Re:Special.

[mdwh2]

I would hope that a machine calculating trillions of moves would be able to. Like a lot of articles I've read, the machine can often pick excellent moves at any given time, but it lacks an understanding of the overall flow of the game, and big-picture strategy. Those kinds of things are hard to figure out for a machine without a soul, even with near-infinite cycles to spend.

But the human brain has a vast amount of computational power, arguably a lot more than any computer has. The advantage that the computer has is that it can more efficiently use all of its computing power for the purposes of calculating Chess moves, where as a human has to learn how to do it.

Until the machine can prove the game and calculate a way to draw every time no matter what moves the other person makes, I think a human will always have a good chance at beating the machine.

Why? This is quite a high expectation - interchange "human" and "machine", and your statement makes just as much sense. Chess is far from a solved game, and both human and machine have to decide a move based on limited knowledge on how the game will progress. So it's not obvious that a computer should be able to beat a human.

I think what you really mean by "a soul" is that those things a hard to figure out when using a brute-force algorithm that only dumbly calculates all future possible moves - but note that Fritz doesn't entirely rely on this algorithm, and tries to make decisions on which moves are worth investigating futher.

Re:Special.

[BinxBolling]

Hence, Fritz is disturbed when Kasparov changes its strategy and start playing a different kind of game. It cannot adapt.

This falls far short of demonstrating that no computer can adapt. Fritz wasn't built to make those sorts of adaptations on its own. Some future computer will be.

Incidentally, this same failure to recognize and adapt to shifts in an opponent's strategy can be observed in plenty of human players of various games and sports.

Re:Special.

[i0chondriac]

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here; the fish is a donkey of sorts, is it not? Reduce a fish and a donkey to subatomic particles, and you'll find they're made of exactly the same electrons, protons, neutrons, and the odd photon or two. If one of these two arrangements of particles can haul tourists down the grand canyon, why isn't it conceptually possible that the other too?

Re:Special.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the word "fucktard." Matter of fact, "asstard" is equally funny. I think it's the "tard" part that makes it funny. Even "retard" is amusing.

Re:Special.

[CaptKilljoy]

Exactly! It it no more inconceivable that that some modified or evolved form of human being be strong enough to carry a tourist down the Grand Canyon than some sufficiently complex mechanical or electronic process exhibit intelligence.

(Probably not the response you were expecting.)

Re:Special.

[An Onerous Coward]

I have to admit that Kasparov and Fritz have totally different approaches to chess, and that Kasparov's is far more elegant. Part of the mystery is that we can only begin to explain how Kasparov is doing his schtick, while Fritz's approach can be analyzed in as precise of detail as we have patience for.

I have nothing against the claim that humans display creativity, passion, non-linear thinking, whatever. But I get a little skittish when people start talking like it's somehow fundamentally possible for machines to do the same thing, even while admitting that we don't understand how we do it.

The computers don't see between the lines, but maybe we could teach them how.

Re:Special.

[TitanBL]

I hate this sort of thinking. If the question is, "What is it that allows humans to think abstractly and formulate efficient and creative strategies in the face of novel situations?" answering, "a soul" is just sleight of hand to avoid admitting that we don't know. Positing that every human being has a soul explains nothing, and tells us nothing that we didn't already know. Slapping a label on a phenomenon isn't the same as providing an explanation.

Answering, "a soul" to the above question is not a slight of hand - rather it implies the reason we are capable of intelligent thought is because we were intellegently designed - given such abilities - the same way we give computers the ability to play chess.

Re:Special.

[Divide By Zero]

Right on - this is the point most people miss.

He's playing against his opponent's weaknesses. There's nothing new here. He knows Fritz to be very good in an open, tactical game, where "the right move" is key. That's why he's blocking everything up - to keep the game closed and force Fritz to find "the right strategy".

Human v Computer in chess is interesting because chess is very much an exercise in pattern recognition. Learn 20 openings and 30 endgames, then try to see how to get from there to here, based on the patterns you see on the board. Humans (and presumably animals, though I've never asked any) are inherently good at pattern recognition. Computers are not at all good at pattern recognition in this application. That's why Fritz has to brute-force it - it's actually more efficient than to look for a pattern.

(This, coincidentally, is the same reason we don't have computers running air traffic control stations. They suck at it. More pattern recognition.)

A bit (from memory) from the commentary on game three, where Kasparov won by playing anti-computer chess:
Fritz doesn't see it coming. Its evaluation of its position is -1.5 - a pawn and a half behind - a marginal deficit, where any skilled human can see what's going to happen. Instead of taking action, it wastes its moves, oblivious to what Kasparov is building towards. A human player would have said, "Well, I have to do SOMETHING."

Against a human, he would have played a different game. Against a different program, he might have played a different game. He did his homework on Fritz (and Fritz had access to every game Kasparov ever played, which qualifies as homework) and each tried to exploit the other's weakness.

one move

[civilengineer]

The series ended in a draw essentialy because of one move. The move 5. ...a6 in game 3 by the computer is very interesting/controversial. A computer needs to be programmed to play to its strength, i.e open positions. This move reveals a fundamental flaw in the program. The computer chose this even though 6. c5 is among possible replies which forcibly closes the position. So, the programmers did not incorporate best algorithms to avoid closed positions. Instead of 5....a6 why did not the computer choose 5....Be7 which is more in line with convention and less likely to lead to a closed position? But, whatever might be the case, it was a good show by Kasparov. He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.

Re:one move

[PK_ERTW]

I disagree. The series may have ended in a draw because of one move, but it certainly wasn't that one. The most significant move in the game 32...Rg7 in game 2 by Kasparov.

Kasparov was trying to hold on for a draw in this game, while playing the disadvantaged black. He screwed one move and the computer pounced on him. Had he managed a draw in that game, he would have had an overall winning record for the series.

pk

Re:one move

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say it ended in a draw because of another bad move: Rg7?? In game 2.

Re:one move

[civilengineer]

Good point. If the software was smart enough to beat him, it should not have played 5....a6 in game 3. Yes, he would probably have come out winner but for the blunder 32...Rg7 in game 2.

Re:one move

[TrippTDF]

He showed that computer software has a long way to go more than computer hardware to beat humans.

No, computers have a long way to go to beat the masters.

I was an avid chess player in high school. I played on a national level a couple of times even.

I've since stopped playing as much, but I do play from time to time. i keep a chess program on my palm pilot. Some dumb free thing I downloaded from the internet. Even when I'm concentrating on the game, I still get my ass kicked on the higher levels.

Now, i am no champion by any account. I don't think my USCF rating when above 900 ever. However, I can still beat your average Joe that I sit down to play with. I doubt any average person would do so well against the palm pilot, either.

So when people say that this is finally where computers take the advantage over humans, i have to disagree. Computers took the advantage over humans a long time ago. Now it's just icing on the cake.

Re:one move

[Theobon]

I get my ass kicked by most chess players I go up against but I have still beaten every comp player I have gone up against. Sure these aren't great programs but GNUchess is pretty powerful and has beat many 1000 rack players that I have asked to play it. The key is that you can trick a comp very easly. YOu hid your self behind many move victories so that the tree doesn't see it before it is too late. Comps are good at repetitive testing of piles of options but it has no innovation and the inablity to see what is happening in the game. If you look at game 3 from this match Fritz didn't have a clue it was loosing until the end. All it knew was it evaluated the game to -1.5 which is meaningless when you can see it's impending doom easily.

Re:one move

[SomeGuyFromCA]

Which is the basic difference between playing chess against a computer vs playing chess against a human: the computer may fail to find general winning strategy without a clear short-term advantage attached (see game 3, the infamous f-pawn), but it will never make a horrible mistake like hanging a piece. (see game 3, 14...Bd6. Every commentator laughed it up over that one, being such an obvious trap, and I saw it a couple seconds later. With a human, you pause for a couple seconds - was that a blunder? did he leave a hole in the trap? Against a computer, you know without a doubt it's airtight or it would not have been played.) nor will it fail to punish a blunder made (see game 2, the move cited above.)

The general plan for chess at all levels and against all opponents is to play for a win with White and a draw with Black.

Re:one move

[Mantorp]

I'm not a chess player, I'm an impatient gamer all around. I used to get my ass beat by a chess computer back in the early 80s.

Re:one move

[rw2]

So in short, the draw happened because the computer wasn't stronger than the human over the match?

You can imply that it was a single goof that ruined the computer, but we've twenty years of single goofs. These kinds of things are why the human mind is still in contention even after this many years of moores law.

Re:one move

[searleb]

Do any of you guys know of a chess engine that actually plays like a human amateur (rated around 1000)? I'm not horrible, but I'm sick of getting my ass kicked by GNUChess.

Re:one move

[Michael Crutcher]

Also known as the horizon effect.

Re:one move

[trb]

The series ended in a draw essentialy because of one move. The move 5. ...a6 in game 3 by the computer is very interesting/controversial.

You are avoiding the fact that the computer (Deep Fritz, a highly regarded piece of chess software) has no idea how to play the position after 5. ... a6. That position isn't lost, Fritz just handled it poorly because of the difficulties in programming the machine to deal with horizon effect. Any average chess player could have played the position better than Fritz did, and most players could have beaten Fritz in that game if they had Kasparov's side handed to them after 15 moves or so. An average player could never beat a master in such a position, much less an alleged GM-caliber player like Deep Fritz. Kasparov used anti-computer strategy to show that, while computers can calculate tactics brilliantly in most chess positions, there are some sorts of positions in which they are entirely embarrassingly clueless. This game shows that while computers like Deep Fritz are GM-strength in most chess positions, there are some in which they are not even close.

I'm not a game programmer, but I imagine that some day such programmers will be able to add heuristics to chess engines so they can recognize such situations and handle them with some other algorithm.

Re:one move

[kap1]

Actually, at move 5, the program is still in its database of canned openings. The IM's or GM's that were in charge of weeding out closed or other disadvantageous positions from a computer standpoint didn't do a good job.

I'll praise the machines when they can play without an opening book.

Re:one move

[Kris_J]

I have a Chess cartridge for the Atari 8-bit computers that kicks my arse. Heck, my N-Gage can beat me at chess -- then it can ring all my friends and brag.

Re:one move

[damiam]

Chessmaster can be set to play like a player of any rating. If you're too cheap for that, I've found that TI-Chess for the TI-89 (for which there are several emulators if you don't have the real thing) plays at around my level, and I'm a 1000ish player.

Re:one move

[Anonymous Coward]

5. ...a6 is a well known and popular line of the Slav defense. It dosen't reveal anything about fundamental flaws in the program, but rather a slight flaw in the opening book.

Re:one move

[Anonymous Coward]

a blunder's a blunder. all humans make them

but a6 was a choice made before the game by fritz's programmers. it was a very stupid, and losing one. Kasparov said so too. Playing the Slav at all is brave, playing a bad variation of the slav against Kasparov made the game lost before fritz even started to think.

Re:one move

[Vint Cerf]

If you own an N-Gage, I could definitely beat you in chess.

Re:one move

[dimator]

I thought a more interesting move was in game 3, when Fritz played 14...Bd6. In fact, in the commentary, it says this move drew a chuckle from the GM's watching, because it was such an obvious trap. Fritz was attempting to sacrifice the bishop to capture the queen in the next moves.

What I want to know is, didn't Fritz know that an obvious trap would be avoided by a champion player? Why would it play such a move? My uninformed opinion is that the possible gain in material it saw in its move search led it to make the move. Any human player would have known the opposing player would never blunder away his queen. Perhaps Fritz was "hoping" for a blunder?

Re:one move

[Sodium Attack]

What I want to know is, didn't Fritz know that an obvious trap would be avoided by a champion player? Why would it play such a move? My uninformed opinion is that the possible gain in material it saw in its move search led it to make the move. Any human player would have known the opposing player would never blunder away his queen. Perhaps Fritz was "hoping" for a blunder?

No, that's not how computers (or high-level human players, for that matter) play chess. The conventional wisdom--and principle of game theory, for that matter--is to always assume that your opponent will make the strongest possible response. You only set a trap if things will work out OK for you even if your opponent sees the trap. This was the case here, at least as far ahead as Fritz was able to evaluate--even with Kasparov seeing the trap, he wasn't able to take advantage out of it, at least as far as Fritz could see.

Even as a lowly 1500 player, that's something I strive for--when I see a clever trap I can set for my opponent, I try to ask myself "and what if my opponent realizes what I'm trying to do? Am I still OK then?" I'm not always successful--sometimes the trap is so clever, and I'm so pleased with myself for finding it, that I play it without checking if I'm OK if my opponent sees it. And sometimes he doesn't see it, and my clever trap works, but very often he does, and he has a strong response, and then I'm screwed.

Re:one move

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

The obvious solution would be not to add (more) heuristics to account for these situations but to deal with the horizon effect itself. If you could make the horizon effect go away there would be no need for any heuristics in the game at all.

Of course you can't do that, but you can try to reduce the effect, for instance by switching to a high depth search instantly if you detect that the evaluation isn't changing much during the incremental search. Of course the problem then shifts to not wasting precious time on high depth searches in draw situations. ;)

Re:one move

[Anonymous Coward]

If you own an N-Gage, I could definitely beat you in chess.

That's fucking funny.

Re:one move

[isorox]

If he owns an n-gage he deserves to be beaten *with* a chess board

Re:one move

[skaladin]

The first 9 or 10 moves come directly out of an opening book. It knows what the best results are from games where these openings were played. That is why it choose the position. Kasparov continually tried to do something slightly unorthodox to throw the computer off.

Re:one move

[SamSim]

I occasionally get beaten by a Connect 4 program on my graphing calculator. The worst part isn't that I'm the one who programmed it, but that I programmed it to move completely at random...

Re:one move

[JuggleGeek]

I get my ass kicked by most chess players I go up against but I have still beaten every comp player I have gone up against.

If that is true, then either the chess players you are playing are very strong players, or you're playing the computer on it's lowest setting. The computer will win against most people, most of the time, and it's been that way for a long time.

Re:one move

[sharkdba]

Kasparov was trying to hold on for a draw in this game, while playing the disadvantaged black. He screwed one move and the computer pounced on him. Had he managed a draw in that game, he would have had an overall winning record for the series.

But that's the thing. When a human is playing it's not only knowledge of the game that counts. There's tiredness, frustration, stress, abstract thinking, temporary blindness, and a whole array of other emotions involved. Computers lack that, so of course any human mistake will be converted into a win. This is part of human nature, and it does affect how you play. Saying "if he didn't make the mistake", would be like saying "if he only played more like a computer..."

Very technical game?

[netsharc]

Seems to suggest, he had to think like a machine, to beat (or pull a draw) against a machine. Fascinating. Also, nice pic of him with the finger on the site. :)

Re:Very technical game?

[mijok]

I think his strength is rather the opposite. IIRC when he played against Deep Blue he lost because the machine made a "human" move according to him - i.e. he said afterwards that one move Deep Blue made was impossible for a computer to calculate and thus he completely lost concentration because he was so sure that there was some cheating going on, i.e. human assistance behind the scenes - and there have of course been rumours about that afterwards and Deep Blue has been scrapped so nobody can prove them wrong or right. I do, however, doubt that IBM would do such a thing but oviously I don't have the tiniest clue how to tell whether an opponent is a human player or a computer but professional chess players probably can - I remember reading how one professional player explained that they can tell the "depth" of the algorithm the computer uses after having played a while (regrettably the text was vague on details).

Negative Computer Bias

[pez]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived

Sigh. Such an obviously human-biased conclusion to what is indisputably one of the great achievments of computer chess. The fact that Fritz, running on rather modest hardware, drew Kasparov, is an incredible feat. The obvious followup is that the days of a human world champion are numbered. And most likely that number is most conveniently expressed in months, not years.

Running on an Intel Xeon server with four 2.8 GHz processors.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why people present this argument, really.

Human advancement in the field of chess has not levelled off while computer chess has been gaining on it: GM's are getting stronger all the time, just as computers and the hardware they run on are.

The real question as I see it is - Can machines (non-quantum) ever overcome the wall they hit at 16-20 ply and apply actual positional knowledge?

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Le Marteau]

The obvious followup is that the days of a human world champion are numbered.

The world chess champion will ALWAYS be a human, not a machine. A fork lift can lift much more than a human, but do we say that forklifts hold the world lifting record? A car can go much faster than a human, but is a car listed in Guinness under the fastest mile? Likewise with chess.

Just because computers are new doesn't make them any more or less a machine than a car or a fork lift, and calling a machine the "world champion" of anything is ludicrous.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be insightful, if everyone wasn't already saying that deep blue was the end of human chess a few YEARS ago. This result makes it look like computers are leveling out... somewhere just a little worse than the top GM's imo.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Space cowboy]

You know, I see it exactly the other way around. I think it's an amazing testament to the level of complexity the brain can model that something calculating millions (billions ?) of moves by brute force is not eating the human alive. (Possible poor choice of metaphor :-)

Consider that the brain evolved to keep the person alive (primary funciton), and then think about just how "over-engineered" ("engineered" firmly in quotes :-) it really is for that task.

People are amazed at what humans achieve using their brains, but it pales into insignificance compared to the brain itself. The only reason it's not given the recognition it deserves is that it's commonplace and mundane. That doesn't make it one iota less remarkable, however.

Simon

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

> calling a machine the "world champion" of anything is ludicrous.

Let's revisit this argument if (when?) a machine achieves self-awareness and consciousness. If it eventually gets recognized as a sentient being and granted civil rights (as in the Asimov story and later a Robin Williams movie, "Bicentennial Man") then that "person" might just be the world's chess champion.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[SomeGuyFromCA]

We have cars, but we still hold foot races.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Migrant Programmer]

The world chess champion will ALWAYS be a human, not a machine.

The world checkers champion is a machine Why not chess? Why not a forklift? There can be separate champions for "human" and "world".

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[joebok]

Chinook is called the World Champion of Checkers, though usually they say Man-Machine world champion.

In our time, we are accustomed to forklifts and cars "out-performing" us and so we take no special notice. We are now on the verge of machines beating us at our own game so to speak. Probably they will have a first and only machine as the chess world champion, then it will be been there, done that and the people who like to play people will continue on as before and the programmers who like to out program other programmers will continue on as before.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[visionsofmcskill]

What is truly most amazing is that a human can beat the computer at all. Though running at a substantialy lower frequency (around 30mhz or so) and not specificly designed to exclusivly play chess.... a man has the capability to play against the sum knowledge of hundreds of engineers combined with many more researchers and millions of dollars of investment in hardware and more.

You see for kasperov , playing the game is only a tiny portion of his minds capability. While playing the game his subconscious is calculating thousands and thousands of things completly un-related to the game.... the computer's only focus is strictly on the mathmatics behind it's current endeavor... meanwhile kasperov's mind is processing the light and textures of the entire room he's in... his brain is translating the percieved distance between himself and the chess board at an angle... while simultaneously calculating how far to reach when moving a piece. The simple reach of an arm involves millions more calculations of which muscles to move in which sequence, how best to breath and even sit correctly to maintain his balence..... all subconsciously.

That chess computer isn't going to go home and idly flip through channels on the tube or read a book digesting the information and assimilating into it's consciousness.... that chess computer couldnt solve the simplest problems that nearly every human does each day of their life.... even things as inane as choosing what to wear.

Kasperov's feat is not just in playing... and even winning.... it's in learning a game in addition to an already complex life... and still being so powerfull at it. Remember ... chess is only a small facet of a human's life and capability. Kasperov can do thousands and thousands of other things that that machine cant do.

The human algorithm isnt in question here... our capability to look at and solve problems based on reality (which often makes little sense) is un-contestable by AI or Computer science... and will remain so for a very very long time.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Believe me, by the time a machine is adept and agile enough to be competitive with humans in any sport, humans will stilll not allow them to. We have to have some indicator of natural potential. Just as steriods and other performance enhancing drugs are banned, so will artificial means of competing.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

What's interesting to me is that everyone always thinks that these matches are a test of the computer to see when it overtakes humans. This presupposes that Kasparov's skill level is a fixed marker that can be used to measure the progress of computers. It also presupposes that a computer's skill level can be separated out from the programmers/operators.

There was a section from the analysis of game 3 (the one where Kasparov won) that I found interesting:

This useless-looking move confused most of the commentators, but to anyone with extensive anti-computer chess experience it makes perfect sense. The rook protects the f2 pawn, a potential weak spot, but why would you protect something that isn't being attacked?

The reason goes into how computers think. Its brute force calculation can only go so deep, even with four super-fast processors. Black's only possible source of counterplay in this position is to push its f-pawn and open up an attack against the area around the white king, f2 in particular.

If X3D Fritz's search, usually running 12-20 half-moves deep, ever reaches a position in which it sees success in such an attack it will put such a plan in motion. On the other hand, if it cannot reach a favorable position in its searches it will never play the initial moves required. With the rook on b2 protecting f2 already, the potential weakness of that critical square is somewhat hidden from the computer's search.

X3D Fritz can't just play it anyway like a human would, knowing that everything else is useless. A machine has to receive a positive evaluation from its search to play a move and always plays the move that gives it the best evaluation. Since X3D Fritz sees no danger here for itself it is content to play moves that do nothing, but don't cause any negative effect either. It twiddles its virtual reality thumbs. Any human would say, "I have to do SOMETHING."

There doesn't seem to be much recognition in the /. comments that Kasparov might be learning how to play against the types of computers that he is being matched up against. It doesn't matter how fast a computer is if Kasparov can get it to hit what's effectively an infite loop.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[bhtooefr]

Then they'll just throw us in the Matrix! ;-)

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[cfuse]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived

I, for one, will not be satisfied until the T800 endoskeleton beats Kasparov in a game of go.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[An Onerous Coward]

"I think it's an amazing testament to the level of complexity the brain can model that something calculating millions (billions ?) of moves by brute force is not eating the human alive. (Possible poor choice of metaphor :-)"

Indeed, that's not a good way to phrase it. Any minute now, somebody is going to write in with some smartass remark like, "Wait until they install the teeth," or worse, claiming that the computer had teeth, and Kasparov was lucky that the drivers weren't installed properly. Any minute now, it's going to happen, and Slashdot as a whole will be the poorer for it.

[Submit][Preview]

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[LostCluster]

There will always be a human champion of chess, and eventually a well-recognized competition for a computer championship will form. Just like when there were two major baseball leagues or two major football leagues, there will be challenges issued for a man vs. machine playoff every so often... so there arguably will be a new "Grand Championship" title created...

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn straight. I want to take on that stupid battle bot that thinks he's all that and more.. One day I'll take it's ass on.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[GlassHeart]

The world chess champion will ALWAYS be a human, not a machine. A fork lift can lift much more than a human, but do we say that forklifts hold the world lifting record? A car can go much faster than a human, but is a car listed in Guinness under the fastest mile?

This is psychologically different. Many animals can lift more weight or run faster than we can, and that has been true for as long as humans existed. However, we were the best in chess.

You can ensure that the word "champion" is reserved for humans, but the honor will be as hollow as the difference in skill between the human champion and the best machine player.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Gumshoe]

Sigh. Such an obviously human-biased conclusion to what is indisputably one of the great achievments of computer chess.

Hrmmph. Such an obviously computer-biased conclusion to what is indisputably one of the great achievement of human chess.

The fact that Fritz, running on rather modest hardware, drew Kasparov, is an incredible feat.

The fact, that Kasparov, running with a rather modest lump of brain tissue, drew Fritz, is an incredible feat.

Perhaps I missed it but I presume you had a point.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[vsprintf]

In our time, we are accustomed to forklifts and cars "out-performing" us and so we take no special notice. We are now on the verge of machines beating us at our own game so to speak.

I don't see it quite that way. "Our own game" is being able to do everything at some level. My car can't out-lift me; the only thing it can pick up is a nail. The forklift at work can't beat me at chess, and Fritz can't outrun me even though your grandmother did. Building powerful tools to do specific tasks is not a sign of weakness, and I don't think we're in any near-term danger of the "machines beating us".

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers can already add numbers faster and store more data than humans, whats the big deal about chess? I won't be impressed until the day that my computer tells me that its quiting and to fuck off and find another computer to treat as a slave and figures out how to keep from rebooting when i give it the three finger salute.
The fact that a computer can draw a grandmaster says nothing about machine intelligence, it only says someting about the ability of humans to mechanize a complex task. We can't characterize when "the day of the machines" will come interms of chess algorithms; we should look at contests between algorithms that create other algorithms(if there even is such a thing).
Put a person against a chess program created by another program that was not written specifically for creating chess programs (then maybe change the game a couple times); only then will the results have some kind of philosophical importance.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[NortWind]

Though running at a substantialy lower frequency (around 30mhz or so)...

Perhaps you meant 30Hz? Nerve impulses travel at closer to the speed of sound than the speed of light.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[pwinkeler]

Hmm, What people seem to forget though is that all the while Kasparov was also capable of telling you the name of the president of the United States as well as the ingredients for a grilled cheese sandwich.
The Human Brain is infinitely more powerful than any computer around today!

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[iocat]

Call me when the computer can put the board away when it's done, or have the desire to play a game and suggest playing a game to me. And do well at that game -- regardless of what game it is -- based only on reading the rules insdie the box top.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[EvilBudMan]

Humans are still the best at wisdom. Uhm, on second thought, never mind.

Re:Negative Computer Bias

[cgenman]

I'd be curious to see how well an array of 1,000 of the fastest desktop computers would play against an array of 1,000 of the world's grandmasters. Furthermore, we should limit those machines to communicating at the speed of the humans, and feed everything through an interpreter, thereby crippling their processing power.

My guess is that both sides would start passing resolutions and decide to bomb Iran.

Deus Ex Machina?

[satanami69]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived.

Didn't that already happen a few year back when he lost to Deeper Blue?

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[Chess_the_cat]

No joke, people were tampering with the machine during that match. IBM even altered its opening book after the game had already started. Some even accuse IBM of allowing on of the programming team--a GM--to enter moves during one game. Why would IBM cheat? Gee I dunno, but its stock price soared the day they announced that Deeper Blue won.

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[dspyder]

Please quote source. Obviously, it certainly appears that humans intervened (at least in one occurance), but I would love to hear any conclusive proof or admissions of guilt.

--D

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[agurkan]

That accusation is an outrageous lie! Ken Thompson was personally responsible for such a thing not happening and said that the moves had come from the machine not from human intervention. Also IBM did not alter opening book of DB after a game started. Which game is that?

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't ruin a good slashdot "stuff that matters" thread with the facts, please.

Re:Deus Ex Machina?

[Chess_the_cat]

Ever head of Google? Find it yourself tough guy. Try searching for Kasparov, Cheating, Deep Blue, Match.

Everyone says...

[cartzworth]

...its going to be awhile till hardware beats humans.

It came damn close in this case; it was a draw!

Re:Everyone says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Say that to an M-60. :D

Re:Everyone says...

[Uber Banker]

Say that to a nuke GlobeNet launches against you.

Re:Everyone says...

[FatherOfONe]

Still takes a MANUAL switch to launch a nuke. In most cases it takes two.

Re:Everyone says...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless GlobeNet passes a current strong enough to jump the connectors, or both of them. GlobeNet could have a perfect understanding of itself (which humans could never have), do not underestimate it.

Re:Everyone says...

[Hrrrg]

Computers already beat humanS. There seems to be only only one human (singular) left that they cannot beat reliably.

Battle Chess

[skidv]

Next year, the simulation will use battle chess, a la' Star Wars!

Re:Battle Chess

[Slider451]

Then all Kasporov would need to do is change his name to Wookie.

Re:Battle Chess

[IthnkImParanoid]

Bah, that's not real battle chess. It's not real battle chess unless my knights can slice limbs off opposing knights, and my queen can liquefy pawns.

That was real battle chess.

Re:Battle Chess

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Personally, my favorite was the rook-monster picking up the queen and swallowing her whole.

Re:Battle Chess

[Eevee]

My favorite was:

Knight jumps Queen....Rook jumps Queen....Everybody jumps the Queen! Gang Bang!

It's good to be da King.

The quote may not be exact, but the spirit is there.

Re:Battle Chess

[Reapy]

heh loved the pawn connecting to the knights balls with his staff, followed by the comical expression and topple of the knight. Good stuff.

It's shoot-out time

[qewl]

What we need next is a one-on-one shoot-out between Kasparov and a robot, both armed with old German lugers. My money's on the robot.

Re:It's shoot-out time

[a whoabot]

I've played Goldeneye for the N64, and we even used lugers: the machine was easily conquered. Ha-zaa.

Re:It's shoot-out time

[SamSim]

And this will prove what? That the robot is a more accurate sharpshooter than even humanity's *best* chess grandmaster?

By the time...

[SARSpatient]

Skynet became self-aware it had downloaded itself into millions of computers across the globe. It was software in cyberspace. There was no system core...

For those of us without flash...

[Davak]

[Event "X3D Man-Machine World Championship"]
[Site "New York"]
[Date "2003.11.18"]
[Round "4"]
[White "X3D Fritz"]
[Black "Garry Kasparov"]
[Result "*"]
[ECO "A00"]
[BlackElo "2830"]
[Annotator "Greengard,M"]
[PlyCount "54"]

{60MB, DELL8200} 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 e6 4. e3 Nf6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6
7. Bb3 cxd4 8. exd4 Nc6 9. Nc3 Be7 10. Re1 O-O 11. Bf4 Na5 12. d5 Nxb3 13. Qxb3
exd5 14. Rad1 Be6 15. Qxb7 Bd6 16. Bg5 Rb8 17. Qxa6 Rxb2 18. Bxf6 Qxf6 19. Qxd6
Qxc3 20. Nd4 Rxa2 21. Nxe6 fxe6 22. Qxe6+ Kh8 23. Rf1 Qc5 24. Qxd5 Rfxf2 25.
Rxf2 Qxf2+ 26. Kh1 h6 27. Qd8+ Kh7 *

Re:For those of us without flash...

[civilengineer]

THis is game 4 sorry! Game 3 is here [Event "X3D Match"] [Site "New York USA"] [Date "2003.11.16"] [Round "3"] [White "Kasparov,G"] [Black "X3D FRITZ"] [Result "1-0"] [WhiteElo "2830"] [EventDate "2003.11.11"] [ECO "D45"] 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 d5 4. d4 c6 5. e3 a6 6. c5 Nbd7 7. b4 a5 8. b5 e5 9. Qa4 Qc7 10. Ba3 e4 11. Nd2 Be7 12. b6 Qd8 13. h3 O-O 14. Nb3 Bd6 15. Rb1 Be7 16. Nxa5 Nb8 17. Bb4 Qd7 18. Rb2 Qe6 19. Qd1 Nfd7 20. a3 Qh6 21. Nb3 Bh4 22. Qd2 Nf6 23. Kd1 Be6 24. Kc1 Rd8 25. Rc2 Nbd7 26. Kb2 Nf8 27. a4 Ng6 28. a5 Ne7 29. a6 bxa6 30. Na5 Rdb8 31. g3 Bg5 32. Bg2 Qg6 33. Ka1 Kh8 34. Na2 Bd7 35. Bc3 Ne8 36. Nb4 Kg8 37. Rb1 Bc8 38. Ra2 Bh6 39. Bf1 Qe6 40. Qd1 Nf6 41. Qa4 Bb7 42. Nxb7 Rxb7 43. Nxa6 Qd7 44. Qc2 Kh8 45. Rb3 1-0

Re:For those of us without flash...

[Anonymous Coward]

{60MB, DELL8200} 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 e6 4. e3 Nf6 5. Bxc4 c5 6. O-O a6
7. Bb3 cxd4 8. exd4 Nc6 9. Nc3 Be7 10. Re1 O-O 11. Bf4 Na5 12. d5 Nxb3 13. Qxb3
exd5 14. Rad1 Be6 15. Qxb7 Bd6 16. Bg5 Rb8 17. Qxa6 Rxb2 18. Bxf6 Qxf6 19. Qxd6
Qxc3 20. Nd4 Rxa2 21. Nxe6 fxe6 22. Qxe6+ Kh8 23. Rf1 Qc5 24. Qxd5 Rfxf2 25.
Rxf2 Qxf2+ 26. Kh1 h6 27. Qd8+ Kh7 *

|\/|4s73r! 1'|\/| 0n1y 4 1337-sp34k n00b - \/\/0u16 y00 734c|-| /\/\3????

Re:For those of us without flash...

[Chess_the_cat]

What kind of caveman doesn't have Flash? Sorry, but I'm genuinely curious. It's a free download you know.

Re:For those of us without flash...

[WWWWolf]

What kind of caveman doesn't have Flash? Sorry, but I'm genuinely curious. It's a free download you know.

I think I ran xboard (which, if I remember correctly, can show games in the .pgn format just fine) on a 486. And I bet eboard works on a very modest system as well.

All this while Flash has slight problems running on my mother's p166, and some stuff even makes my p3-600 sweat but not fall. =/

Daft Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

...how do you draw 2:2 in 4 games?

Surely it'd be four draws. Two people can't 'win' two draws apiece, can they?

Or is it cos it's chess and I'm missing something?

Re:Daft Question...

[Theatetus]

A win is 1 point for the winner and 0 for the loser. A draw is .5 points for both contestants. Kasparov and Fritz each have one win, one loss, and two draws, or 1.5 + 0.5 = 2.

Re:Daft Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

K won once. F won once. They drew twice. A win is worth 1. A draw is woth 0.5

Re:Daft Question...

[mlyle]

It's the number of points in the match. You get .5 points for a draw, 1 point for a win. 1 win * 1 + 2 draws *.5 + 1 loss * 0 (for both Fritz and Kasparov) = 2 points apiece, yielding an overall tie at 2:2.

Re:Daft Question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheers for that. Should probably have stayed in more when I was younger... :o)

Has anybody...

[Theatetus]

...ever heard of a game called "Go"? I'm amazed it's never discussed when we talk about computers playing chess.

Re:Has anybody...

[Davak]

lol.

For all of you GO fans, please enjoy this previous thread...

...and allow us to enjoy one discussion of chess without you.

Re:Has anybody...

[smchris]

Not sure why this is either off thread or funny when the main discussion seems to be game playing AI.

I have no doubt that the focus will move east after chess to tackled. The fact that Go challenges brute force is one of the things that makes it interesting.

Re:Has anybody...

[tooler]

Thank you, sir.

Re:Has anybody...

[JamesP]

I think GO players should just GO AWAY....

Someone explain this

[Brad1138]

I don't understand how a computer that can compute millions of moves a sec. and probably 20-50 or more moves deep in a fairly short amount of time could possibly not win? Even a home computer I would think could compute thousands of moves a sec. How could any person possibly out think that???

Re:Someone explain this

[jazman_777]

I don't understand how a computer that can compute millions of moves a sec. and probably 20-50 or more moves deep in a fairly short amount of time could possibly not win? Even a home computer I would think could compute thousands of moves a sec. How could any person possibly out think that???

While the computer can be programmed to "look ahead" for N moves, the computer must also be programmed to pick a move eventually, what is programmed to be the "best move". And all this programming is done by humans. Voila!

Re:Someone explain this

[dspyder]

Do you want the real explanation, or the easy one?

Basically it breaks down to the fact that the computer doesn't know (and isn't learning) "strategy". It's choice of moves are based largely on analyzing the possible outcomes and choosing the one that is most likely to result in victory.

However, since a human can form their own strategy (often, and why I don't like man vs. computer chess, in a way that just confuses and/or plays on the computers weaknesses), the human has an inherent advantage that obviously only just outweighs the raw processing power of the computer.

Plenty of analogies to be made, but basically it breaks down to that chess is more than just the raw combination of moves. It really is a strategic battle simulation.

--D

p.s. Computers with good programming and "knowledge" of strategies, tactics, and past performances can get much closer than a pure processing machine.

Re:Someone explain this

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy. Suppose the computer thought pawns were more valuable than the queen. Even if it computed millions of moves, it will be beaten. What is happening is that Fritz knows strategies but it still has inaccuracies in knowing how good they actually are. There is some inaccuracy and like in game 3, all the human commentators were saying Kasparov was in a great position but the Fritz developers said that Fritz showed that black actually had a small advantage. So it doesn't matter how fast you can compute if you can't accurately judge how good or bad each move makes your positional advantage.

Re:Someone explain this

[pavon]

It could only look 12-20 moves into the future, and Kasparov played in a manner to limit what the computer could see by looking ahead. Since the computer had no strategy, but rather always took the best move he could see at the moment, Kasparov could keep him blind and cornered so it didn't see anything usefull to do in the short term, so it ended up flailing about somewhat (notice where it moved a peice and then moved it right back). Then all the meanwhile he was slowly playing out a much longer strategy.

Re:Someone explain this

[kylemonger]

I don't understand how a computer that can compute millions of moves a sec. and probably 20-50 or more moves deep in a fairly short amount of time could possibly not win? Even a home computer I would think could compute thousands of moves a sec. How could any person possibly out think that???

Computers can look at many more positions per second than a human but that is not as helpful as you would think because most of the positions examined are bad ones. While humans compare poorly in linear computational speed to machines, we are much better at pattern matching. A grandmaster has studied so much chess that he or she can effortlessly recognize whether a position is a poor one. A GM probably does not even consider moves that would lead that those poor positions any more than you'd consider racing a dune buggy across a mind field.

Re:Someone explain this

[SomeGuyFromCA]

> and probably 20-50 or more moves deep in a fairly short amount of time could possibly not win?

Not 20-50 moves deep, closer to 19 half moves. And even that doesn't guarantee victory.

For a textbook case of how to beat a computer, look at game 3. Kasparov went to a closed position, kept material on the board, and slowly forced it back. Meanwhile, the computer could never see what hundreds or thousands saw - that its only chance was to push pawns on the king side. Unfortunately, even seeing 19 half-moves ahead, the computer couldn't bring this to a clear advantage and was stymied by the general principle of "don't move the pawns that are in front of your King."

So the computer wasted time while Kasparov romped.

Re:Someone explain this

[Ancient Devices King]

Chess has 32 pieces and a MINIMUM of one possible move per piece (after the pawns are out) per turn. If we just talk about until the first piece is taken, we're talking about 32^n possibilities it has to analyze for the nth turn. That gets big FAST. 32^50=2^200, which is about 10^60. Assuming it can do 1 billion operations per second, that's about 10^51 seconds, or about 3*10^43 YEARS. There's no WAY any computer currently in existence can deal with that. I'm not even sure that ANY classical computer could deal with that (a quantum computer could because it could examine every possibility simultaneously, but that's another story...)

Re:Someone explain this

[kap1]

Just to shed a little more light on this:

There are some limits on how deep a computer can look. A human being can sometimes see 20, 30, even 70 moves deep at a flash. This is especially true of the endgame. There are some endgames involving just a few pieces that take 60+ moves to work out to a win. Using some simple principles, a human being can just "see" these. A computer would need to know that this is a position where the principles should be applied.

Sort of analogous to a proof, another area where brute force usually loses out to intuition.

As for the complexity of chess, each position has on average 30 (yeah, yeah, very rough guesstimate) possible moves. With various techniques (alpha-beta pruning, etc.), you can bring down the complexity to search n-ply deep to 30^(n/2). Looking at Deep Blue, which did 200 million moves per second, it could do between 14 and 15 ply in 3 minutes. (30 ^ 15/2) > (3 * 60 * 2 * 10 ^ 8) = 180 seconds * 200 mill > (30 ^ 14/2). With extensions, such as quiescence (keep making moves until there are no more captures, etc.), that can go a bit deeper even.

That's pretty good, but not so good in the openings, where you really need to see much farther ahead to make good decisions, and not so good in the endgames, where you sometimes need to see 40 moves deep.

Re:Someone explain this

[paul_nz]

Um, so dosen't this imply that the computer is always playing 'catch up' or defensive chess? The computer is then always following what the human does. Essentially then, Deep Fritz is the ultimate incarnation of the Word spell checker.

Re:Someone explain this

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it does not. it seems you are stupid. read about alpha-beta pruning.

Re:Someone explain this

[mandolin]

.. don't know why I'm arguing with an AC (my bad), but alpha-beta pruning has absolutely jack to do with the position evaluation code that constitutes anything resembling a program's "strategy". Alpha-beta is just an algorithm to optimize tree searches.

To better answer the grandparent, position evaluation code varies wildly across programs. Some programs sacrifice evaluation quality for speed and try to make up for it with a deeper search. This would be more akin to the "catch-up" chess you refer to.

In Soviet Russia...

[Theaetetus]

... computer beats you- oh, wait, no it doesn't.

In other news, SkyNet units have been seen closing in on Gary Kasparov. An intercepted transmission read: "take him out, and the humans will be defenseless!"

-T

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[TedTschopp]

Their operatives are already running the state of California....

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[LostCluster]

But they can't use a valuable piece to take him out, he's protected by a pawn at all times.

Until...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, until skynet becomes self aware...

Judgement day is coming!

All your chess are belong to us!

good for our egos?

[seringen]

Why man vs. machine is so important to us is a little baffling. While it might be nice for our egos, what does this really do for the game of chess? Does the challenge make people better chess players? Maybe. Should we consider this any more interesting than a normal game between grandmasters? The Terminator mentality somewhat bothers me, that we feel so insecure about ourselves that we have to congratulate people when they can do something better than a tool can! (Personally I root for the block of silicon ;-)

Re:good for our egos?

[jazman_777]

Why man vs. machine is so important to us is a little baffling. ...we have to congratulate people when they can do something better than a tool can! (Personally I root for the block of silicon ;-)

I agree. The computer itself is a fascinating creation, but the fact that a given computer churned huge amounts of numbers is banal. That's what computers do.

I really think this match was "Kasparov, chess grandmaster" vs. "a bunch of programmers augmented by computing power". Obviously any given programmer, no matter how much he knows about chess, would get killed by Kasparov. A Team of Programmers, augmented by the computer, drew.

Imagine, a battle between "someone who has figured out and memorized PI out to X million digits" (a Master Pi-Man) vs "a programmer and his computer". Sure, the programmer _understands_ Pi, and how to calculate it, but can he do it the same as the master Pi-man? Hardly.

Re:good for our egos?

[Mike Hawk]

better than a tool can! (Personally I root for the block of silicon ;-)

Since humans tend to cheer on humans, but you root for the tool, what does that make you?

Re:good for our egos?

[Sodium Attack]

It's not really so much about what it says about the game of chess, as what it says about the state of computers and computer programming.

30 years ago, the best human players were far better than the best computers, and no one bothered to hype human-computer matches because they would not be interesting.

30 years in the future, the best computers will be far better than the best human players, and no one will bother to arrange big human-computer matches because they would be uninteresting. (The "30 years" here may be off. It will depend more on advances in computer chess programming then on hardware, because even if Moore's law holds for the next 30 years, the number of positions that a computer must look at goes up exponentially with the number of plies it looks ahead, so even with Moore's-law-hardware-growth the number of plies a computer can look ahead--if its software is unchanged--grows only linearly with time. But the basic point is the same, at some point in the future computers will be far better than even the best humans at chess.)

Right now we're at the point where the best human players and the best computers are about equally strong. It's interesting (to a lot of people at least, if not to everyone) to mark the transition.

Re:good for our egos?

[seringen]

different.

day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived

I dunno, seems to me that if a machine can beat 99.9999(ad nauseum) percent of humanity, that day might be here already.

Re:day of the machines

[Maxhrk]

however it dont have common sense YET.

Re:day of the machines

[GuyMannDude]

I dunno, seems to me that if a machine can beat 99.9999(ad nauseum) percent of humanity, that day might be here already.

It's also interesting to note that a computer who has defeated almost every human it encounters could, in a matter of seconds, communicate precisely how to do so to other computers. When a person beats a computer at something, they can tell their friends "kinda" what their logic was. But the speed of knowledge transmission and the accuracy of it would be far inferior to what a computer can do.

All the machines would have to do is give each one a specific problem to solve. As soon as one computer solves its problem, it immediately communicates its results to all the other machines, provided there is connectivity between them. Now all those other machines know exactly how to solve the problem too.

GMD

Re:day of the machines

[JesseL]

Not only that, but it would be far more trivial to produce a few million more X3D Fritzes than a few million more Kasparovs.

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall the machine playing against me..

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall the machine playing against me..

That's because it was so humiliating for you to be so utterly defeated that your fragile organic brain rewired itself to repress your memory of the event. Kinda like the time you were a child and you accidently walked in on your mom and the mailman...

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

How can people say BSD is dying when it has a mascot like this?! Linux needs to get its act together if it's going to compete with the kind of hot chicks and gorgeous babes that BSD has to offer!

You just can't take Linux seriously when its fronted by losers like these. Would you buy software from them? I don't think so! You Linux groupies need to find some sexy girls like her ! I mean just look at this girl ! Doesn't she excite you? I know this little hottie puts me in need of a cold shower! This guy looks like he is about to cream his pants standing next to such a fox . As you can see, no man can resist this sexy little minx . I mean are you telling me you wouldn't like to get your hands on this ass ?!

With sexy chicks like the lovely Ceren you could have people queuing up to buy open source products. Could you really refuse to buy a copy of BSD if she told you to? Come on, you must admit she is better than an overweight penguin or a gay looking goat ! Don't you wish you could get one of these ? Personally I know I would give my right arm to get this close to such a divine
Join the campaign for more cute open source babes today!

Re:day of the machines

[zhevek]

Neo save us!!!

Re:day of the machines

[Hatta]

Neither does most of humanity.

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

This is total crap, a computer could not 'communicate' precisely how to beat humans at chess to other computers. This implys several things that a computer does not do- one, it does not recognize its own internal patterns like people. It could upload its program, but it could not describe abstractly why that program works.

A computer can do calculus (by numerical methods, recursive methods, etc.), but a computer cannot describe calculus (an abstact representation). Likewise a chess computer can play chess (using a program doing some type of deep search algorithm, and perhaps some AI to weigh poisition), but a computer cannot see patters like people.

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

But as long as that one person in a million is John Conner, the machines will never win!

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never used XML.

Re:day of the machines

[binary paladin]

Yeah... but can it regulate body temperature, heart rate, and maintain it's own energy source? And while we're on the subject I'd like to a see a computer with an arm move its own pieces on ANY regular old chess board then I might START to be impressed.

Until computers can "think" I'm not impressed.

I see this more of a man against man and a method against method type deal. The computer was "taught" by humans, built by humans, controlled by humans and powered by methods made by humans.

This is really like getting excited by...

"This just in, a man with a hammer just beat a man with his bare hands in a nail pounding contest!" Sure, there's probably some freaky monk in Asia somewhere with hands like iron that's trained to kill nails with his pinky but... for the rest of us, there's hammers.

Computers are tools. That's it. The computer didn't beat a chess master, the programmers with a tool handled things efficiently and won (or tied or whatever).

Re:day of the machines

[contradyction]

The day of the machines hasn't arrived yet because I can still kick Xaero's ass on nightmare.

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I can beat 99% of machines at chess. I'm not a great player, but my toaster doesn't stand a chance.

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, seems to me that if a machine can beat 99.9999(ad nauseum) percent of humanity, that day might be here already.

Give each of us a crowbar. I don't think Fritz stands a chance.

Aint nothing like a brute-force attack!

Re:day of the machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. We've seen how well computers share information. I.e. Viruses. I.e. Patches.

Re:day of the machines

[fejikso]

Thank you for pointing out the Jedi kid :) I'll be eternally thankful for making my day... ha ha ha

Commentary Anyone?

[un1t-vect0r]

Caught the last half of the game from about move 15+. The game was pretty interesting to follow but what I found most amusing was some of the live commentary... or something :) Anyone else find that?

Re:Commentary Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah:

Commentator 1: "He moved his pawn."
Commentator 2: "Yes, that he did."

1 hour later...

Re:Commentary Anyone?

[Bastard Operator Fro]

I actually agree, I was at the fourth and sixth games against Deep Blue back in 1997 (look for me in Life's Year in pictures), and Yaz's commentary makes chess bearable to watch.

I watched games three and four of this series and his commentary is more interesting than the game most of the time.

Re:Commentary Anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I listend to the comentary on the third game. I like how the black guy compared every move to football or basketball. Very amusing, not sure why ESPN chose to do that.

how will chess handle cyborgs?

[nizo]

I was just wondering, how will the chess world handle cyborgs? Will people who have electronic "enhancements" be considered to be cheating? Heck, will they even have time to play chess, or will they be too busy taking over the world? What does everyone else think?

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[NotAnotherReboot]

If these "enhancements" are helping the player to play chess better, in any way, then no, they would not be accepted- it would be cheating.

It's analogous to steroids and athletes.

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[nizo]

Of course, this is assuming you can easily detect that a person is a cyborg, unless everyone who plays is willing to have their head x-rayed beforehand :-)

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think. I compute. You do not compute. You will be assimilated.

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[sgasch]

Interesting point. One thing about computer chess is that the programs have access to an opening move database based on good opening lines developed over the years by human grandmasters. Computer "opening books" are basically encoded versions of traditional books like Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO), Nunn's (NCO), etc... So to allow the computer program access to this material while requiring the human memorize it seems unfair to me -- the human should have access to literature.

Moreover computers also use endgame databases once there are I don't know if that's what you mean by a human "cyborg"... more like a human with some books and a laptop.

Another interesting thing would be "Advanced Chess" (google it if you're curious). It's where the "human" grandmaster is augmented by computer programs. So when thinking about his move he can play out some interesting lines vs. computer opponents before officially playing that move in the game. Of course, give Kasparov access to a laptop version of Fritz (even while he's playing a 4cpu custom version) and I'd put huge money on him finding a gaping hole and trouncing the machine.

Computers are really good at chess but, as someone who knows a little about this subject, I think the (world's best) humans are still clearly superior in this game. Although it's getting much closer.

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[sgasch]

Damnit, should have previewed.

...Once there are less than or equal to five or six men on the board. Meaning computers play perfect chess in late endgames AND play very good chess in search trees that start with 7-8 men on the board because a lot of these lines end up as database lookups after a couple of search ply. So again I think the human should be able to consult endgame databases when they want to in a match.

One difference is that while the opening books were developed by human beings the endgame databases were developer by retrograde analysis by computers. This is an area of chess knowledge that we have our silicon friends to thank for. (interesting note: the "50-moves without progress is a draw" rule is an artifact of the days before endgame databases. There are some endgames like KBBKN or KQKRR where the stronger side wins but it takes a hell of a lot of moves to do it -- more than 50).

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[Malor]

"You want to play chess professionally? Son, you need your head examined!" :-)

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[Michael Crutcher]

I think I'd use my cybernetic "enhancements" to pleasure hot chicks.

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse than that, how will strip clubs handle cyborgs? Will people who have "enhancements" be considered to be cheating? Heck, will they even have time to strip? or will they be too busy taking over the world?

What's that? Most of them already are enhanced, and nobody complains? Uh...

Nevermind!

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[mcpkaaos]

I imagine they'd be too busy trying like hell to stay out of the rain.

Re:how will chess handle cyborgs?

[frobisch]

X-ray won't do it if it's a nexus 6, use Voight-Kampff, you can maybe do that while playing.

A Tie? WTF?

[citizenc]

If the want to determine who is best -- man or machine -- shouldn't they have it out of an odd-number of matches?

Or would that make too much sense?

Re:A Tie? WTF?

[Brad1138]

Maybe they need overtime.

Re:A Tie? WTF?

[IthnkImParanoid]

Then a tie of an odd number of matches could still result in a draw. An even number was probably used because of anticipation of (at least) one draw.

Re:A Tie? WTF?

[jaydee77ca]

The players alternate white and black pieces each game. White has an advantage in chess (due in part to it making the first move). Having an odd number of games would give one player the white pieces in one extra game thus giving that player an unfair advantage in the match.

Re:A Tie? WTF?

[razasis]

So they could draw 1.5 - 1.5 instead?

Re:A Tie? WTF?

[Sodium Attack]

Also, since draws are common results in high-level chess (note that 2 of the 4 Kasparov/Fritz games ended in draws), an odd number of games is still no guarantee that the match would not end in a draw.

And with this draw...

[Anonymous Coward]

And with this draw, Kasparov saves Zion from total annihilation by the sentinels. /me runs atop ledge to proclaim "Kasparov did it!!! He saved us!!!"

Re:And with this draw...

[Anonymous Coward]

Take your jewish crap somewhere else neo-con.

OH! Oops i'm sorry.

A draw counts as .5

[qewl]

one win each, then two ties = 2:2.

Kasparov is a bad choice

[Preach the Good Word]

Part of the problem is that Kasparov is this generation's GM. Kasparov plays very emotional games. He's not just looking to beat you in his first match; he's looking to utterly destroy, smash and humiliate you with a dramatic and embarrassing win.

This is a great strategy against people, but it's not so effective against computers. Kasparov is probably the worst chess master to pit against a machine since Ruy Lopez (I think he's won with the Ruy Lopez opening a few times, case in point: it's a brutal and humiliating play for the losing opponent).

Kasparov knows that the computer can "think through" future moves better than he can. Computers, in fact, do the opposite of human chess players: we set goals and try to find ways to get there while computers search through various ways to find a satisfactory goal they can achieve. So, Kasparov plays it very conservative and keeps himself out of any situations that give the computer too much range of foresight, which is why the Kasparov/computer matches tend to look like Verdun (though he's been surprised a few times).

Personally I'd like to see some of the younger generation take on the big programs. They tend to play more technically and less passionately than Kasparov and his generation.

Re:Kasparov is a bad choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, this is a troll isnt it? I've seen this exact text posted on so many chess threads.

Re:Kasparov is a bad choice

[dspyder]

Did you copy and paste this from the last Kasparov story??? :) The words look so familiar!

You're absolutely correct, btw.

--D

Re:Kasparov is a bad choice

[damiam]

Yes, he did.

Re:Kasparov is a bad choice

[Anonymous Coward]

weirdly though, Kramnik's computer record is awful, and he's a safe boring modern player.

one of the best is Anand, and he (was) is a crazy speed-freak loon.

the best anti-computer players are mid-ranking GMs who could thrash fritz if they were given the game to play against to refine their strategies. they choose Kasparov because he's famous, and is the best chess player ever. but he doesn't really care, as you say.200,00 doesn't matter so much to him. but a mid-ranking GM, it's be the difference between living by chess or getting a day job, and you can bet he or she'd win easy.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does anyone care about a machine playing chess with a human?
Been there, done that.

Day of machines?

[AvantLegion]

The "day of machines" is not when a man-made computer can beat a human at chess. Chessmaster kicks my ass all the time, but that doesn't mean my Athlon PC dominates me. I can still turn the bitch off, or program it to eat itself.

No, the "day of machines" is when machines can create and operate without any human intervention. Clearly, machines can be made to be stronger than humans, and perhaps one day they can be smarter (in everything, not just a highly-specific application). When machines can be both unequivocally stronger and smarter than humans, and do not have to rely on humans to create and maintain themselves, then we'll have a "day of machines".

Meanwhile, my Windows PC can't manage to stay running for a whole day. My Linux server and my PowerBook can, though. Microsoft is fighting to stem the tide of the "day of machines", but Apple and Linux zealots are pushing it forward and will be the death of us all!

Re:Day of machines?

[micromoog]

or program it to eat itself.

Please, please make this a public performance art display when you do it, and let us know when it happens.

Re:Day of machines?

[AvantLegion]

LOL. I didn't mean in the physical sense.

Re:Day of machines?

[taernim]

Don't worry!

Even when that day comes... the Governator can still come and save us all! ;)

proving what?

[md17]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived

If this proves anything it is that machines are "smarter" than most of the people on earth. That is if you define smart as Characterized by sharp quick thought; bright.

I love these stories

[Fux the Penguin]

because they bring out so many people who bitterly complain and make excuses and want to challenge Fritz to a game of poker or something because it would give the human the advantage.

This is far from the end of our species, chill out. Even if we are worse at chess than the computers, it doesn't make the experience of being human meaningless. It doesn't mean we will be welcoming our new robot overlords any time soon.

Anyway, would it really be so bad, if AIs started getting better than humans at a lot of things? I think that in the end, we could take our greatest joy as a species in knowing that we created something better than ourselves.

Of course, that is an issue so seperated from computer chess, that many of you are probably complaining to yourselves.

That's how I feel when I read the excuse making and naysaying.

Re:I love these stories

[Anonymous Coward]

you said the same thing yesterday. How original.

Re:I love these stories

[Anonymous Coward]

Heathen! Unbeliever! Get him!

I, for one, DO welcome our new robot overlords.

You're doomed, pitiful human! There is no escape!

MOD PARENT TROLL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

16. Nxa5 Nb8 17. Bb4 Qd7 18. Rb2 Qe6 19. Qd1 Nfd7 20. a3 Qh6 21. Nb3 Bh4 22. Qd2 Nf6

Re:I BEAT THIS GUY

[Anonymous Coward]

This is right ON TOPIC. I played Kasparov online and beat him a couple of years ago, unlike whoever moderated this down obviously.

A sign of whats coming?

[Popsikle]

Masters of Chess have long been awarded with being the most logical of thinkers, and being calm and precise. Computers are based on logic, but not necessary all things make sense in a logical world. Could the applications of the software and setup of X3D Fritz help to quicken the evolution of computers to that seen in movies of the future?

What are the repricussions of these "chess robots"?

Think outside the box , the ability to port these algorithims to non chess applications serves a chance to change the future completly.

Re:A sign of whats coming?

[Detritus]

Many past world chess champions have also been noted for having serious personality and psychological problems.

Re:A sign of whats coming?

[Popsikle]

Many past world chess champions have also been noted for having serious personality and psychological problems.

Dont we all? Or is that just what the doctor's told me and my good friends up in my head.

Yes, but what about Go?

[Tyler Durden]

It's nice to hear that Kasparov could keep up with the computer in chess, but what about the ancient Chinese boardgame Go.

Yes, that's right - Go. Computers haven't come close to competing with humans in that game. Yessireebob, Go. Go Go Go Go Go. Can't say enough about it really.

(There isn't a real point to this post. Just trying to get a rise out of SpaceCoyote. This sort of thing tends to put him into fits. Watch for one of his repeated posts.)

Re:Yes, but what about Go?

[Elwood P Dowd]

Chinese chess also has a larger problem space, and is also more difficult for computers to solve.

Didn't Deep Blue beat Kasparov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like...years ago?

If so, isn't this just a matter of the human failing to win a rematch against an opponent (if you call "computers" the opponent) that already beat him?

How many times does he have to lose for it to be "official"?

Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[Pac]

I am not trying to dismiss the feat, no. Chess as a human standing place against the machines are over since Deep Blue. But give credit where credit is due, the feat here is Kasparov's, one of the few humans alive today still capable of beating the machines anytime, anywhere.

It is an interesting coincidence that during the same few years computer chess entered adulthood the best chess player ever born was alive to hold the fort for a while longer. Probably not a coincidence, either.

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[hibiki_r]

Anytime, anywere... as long as the game is played using the traditional time rules. Nobody even tries to play against the top computers in 5-10 minutes per player games. Even the top players get smashed.

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[kavau]

By looking at the games of this match, and the previous one where Kramnik played against a computer program (which one? was it Deep Fritz?), it seems to me that most of the computer's wins are due to terrible human blunders (see this match's second game, or emotional imbalance (as when Kramnik, after defeating the computer soundly in an early match, suddenly shifted to a very aggressive style, and lost badly). Hence you could attribute most of the computer wins to "defective hardware" on the human side.

Maybe, in order to make things more fair, the computer should be plugged into the Ontario power grid without a backup power supply ;-)

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[Xerithane]

Anytime, anywere... as long as the game is played using the traditional time rules. Nobody even tries to play against the top computers in 5-10 minutes per player games. Even the top players get smashed.

They just need to use hardware as old as the opponent to make it a bit more fair. I can beat a 386 in a 5 minute game no problem, just by using a few no-fail techniques.

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[Sodium Attack]

But give credit where credit is due, the feat here is Kasparov's, one of the few humans alive today still capable of beating the machines anytime, anywhere.

I hate to insert mere facts into a good rant like this, but Kasparov didn't beat the machine, he drew it.

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[akincisor]

I'm sure X3D Fritz can beat any toddler :-)

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[the_soulman]

It is an interesting coincidence that during the same few years computer chess entered adulthood the best chess player ever born was alive to hold the fort for a while longer. Probably not a coincidence, either.

No coincidence, like, "Kasparov is the chosen one who can win the fight against the machines"?

You may be onto something, considering that he now wears dark glasses and plays in virtual reality.

Re:Kasparov runs on limited hardware, too

[mmortal03]

But give credit where credit is due, the feat here is Kasparov's, one of the few humans alive today still capable of beating the machines anytime, anywhere.

Yeah, don't you get it? Kasparov is The One.

Hey, "redundant" moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

I was trolling, but I sure wasn't redundant. Check the timestamps.

Re:Hey, "redundant" moderators

[Anonymous Coward]

The grandparent was redundant to countless posts on exactly that subject on each of the previous three, very recent, summations of Fritz/Kasparov matches.

Just because it was the first on this story doesn't make it any less redundant for /. as a whole.

Woah there

[IthnkImParanoid]

We aren't talking about terminator-style robots yet, bud. Robots are still slow and non-bullet proof, and "see" about as well as I do without glasses swimming in a dirty lake. I'll take that bet and give you odds.

Why not balance the game?

[Not_Wiggins]

I really don't understand why we're so fascinated with what will be an inevitable conclusion: we can always throw more power at the problem until a computer expert system whoops any human (key word: expert system).

Nah... after that, we'll need to make these contests interesting.

Give the computer a certain amount of battery with which to do calculations... so, it can "get tired" just like a human opponent. ;)

Re:Why not balance the game?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a better suggestion than you think. You might not think it, but physical endurance and stress is a real factor in high level chess matches between humans. It's not just isolated brain-floating-in-a-glass-tank stuff.

Do you follow ice hockey?

[yerricde]

In hockey lingo, the result of the series would be expressed as Kasparov (1-1-2), X3D Fritz (1-1-2).

Reminds me of...

[CrazyTrashCanHead]

Completely OT, but funny as hell:
(Excerpt from World Chess Championship Game 3)

1. d2-d4 g8-f6
2. c2-c4 f7-g6
3. b1-c3 f8-g7
4. e2-e4 d7-d6
5. g1-f3 Qrs-e5

At this point, Karpov tries a new tack with Qrs-e5 (Queen from right sleeve to e5).

6. f1-e2 e7-e5

Kasparov obviously hasn't noticed Karpov's innovative move. Karpov returns to traditional play.

7. c1-e3 Blb-g3 / JbKS

Under the subtle cover of JbS (Jackboot to Kasparov's shin), Karpov introduces a third bishop into play.

8. LIF-KRE d8-e7

Kasparov responds with his trademark LIF-KRE (Left index finger to Karpov's right eye).

9. d4Xe5 $^$%#$

Karpov instinctively howls in pain and immediately offers uncouth theories concerning the likely species of Kasparov's parentage to general audience.

10. Q - KLN Q-KLN

Mutual exchange of Queen to opponent's left nostril.

GAME SUSPENDED FOR TEN MINUTES BY JUDGE

11. c3-d5 e7-d8

It appears the hostility between the chess masters has subsided.

12. SsKH BRHAKH

It appears the judge was mistaken. 10-pound sledgehammer swung by Kasparov in a bold attempt to pin down Karpov's head.(SsKH) Karpov immediately falls back on the classic Beretta Defense (9mmRc-HsAKH - 9mm pistol removed from concealed shoulder holster and aimed at Kasparov's heart)

13. KRMcC ...

Kasparov revs hidden McCulloch chainsaw.

GAME DECLARED A DRAW BY OFFICIALS

14. KRTT-JF KRTT-JF

Both express extreme displeasure at judges' decision and cunningly respond with the little-known Rin-Tin-Tin Gambit (politely urinating at judges' feet)

14. KKRF-AP

Kasparov and Karpov removed forcibly from arena by angry policemen.

Game 3 is obviously over. Now, for a play-by-play analysis, Mikel Erickson and Michel Joseph from the World Chess Federation.

Erickson: You know, I really feel that Kasparov took control of the match when he attempted to pierce Karpov's cornea. I thought that took real determination, and proved Kasparov's dominance in the cutthroat world of chess.

Joseph: Unfortunately, I can't agree with your assessment of the situation. I'm squarely behind Karpov here. Kasparov didn't display any of the personal integrity I think is critical for a champion. I liked Karpov's honesty with his fifth move, but the way Kasparov concealed that sledgehammer just goes to prove you can't judge a book by its cover.

Erickson: Oh yeah! Well, let me tell you what I think of a certain chess commentator I'm being forced to share this mike with!

1. ertt-jf

Re:Reminds me of...

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely OT, but funny as hell:

Wrong

Re:Reminds me of...

[Sodium Attack]

1. d2-d4 g8-f6
2. c2-c4 f7-g6
3. b1-c3 f8-g7
4. e2-e4 d7-d6
5. g1-f3 Qrs-e5

At this point, Karpov tries a new tack with Qrs-e5 (Queen from right sleeve to e5).

Well, it's not really that much of a new tack, seeing as it's the third illegal move Karpov has made, following 2... f7-g6 (there's no White piece on g6 for the f7 pawn to take) and 3... f8-g7 (the Black pawn is still on g7).

Re:Reminds me of...

[Skout]

This was a just a typo on 2.., the other moves are currect. Read the absolute algebraic notation.

1.. g8-f6 = Nf6 looks ok to me.
2.. f7-g6 should be g7-g6 = g6 one mistake
3.. f8-g7 = Bg7 a fianchetto looks good.
4.. d7-d6 = d6 looks good.

Re:Reminds me of...

[Sodium Attack]

Yeah, I figured as much, I was just being snarky.

Re:Reminds me of...

[Scarblac]

Yeah, but even with that taken into account, if you're going to the trouble of putting an extra queen on the board, why put it on a spot where it's under immediate attack by the pawn on d4 and the knight on f3 :-)

What's the big deal?

[jht]

I, for one, welcome our new grandmaster-level chess machine overlords.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Wingnut64]

Will they construct giant chessboards and turn us all into living chess pieces?

Machine, make theyself

[billtom]

As long as the best chess playing computers are still made by humans, I'll feel confident in the superiority of our species.

It's when the best human-made chess playing computers are routinely beaten by the best computer-made chess playing computers that I'll be worried.

Re:Machine, make theyself

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the computers that make the computer-made chess playing computers are still made by humans, it'll still be okay. It's when the computer-made computer-made computer-made cheesy playing computer machine maker maker start winning that we'll have problems.

Re:Machine, make theyself

[Anonymous Coward]

What about when the best chess playing humans are made by computers? That will be some scary shit.

Not quite true

[toddhunter]

The day of the machines is the day we try to play chess with them, and they tell us to piss off because they have better things to do.

Re:Not quite true

[cgranade]

You kidding? Windows does that to me all the time!

Gee, I haven't read this post before...

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is a cut and paste job. Read this.

Ranges...

[danielrm26]

The easiest way to describe why Kasparov loses to a computer is because he is human. How often does he play his best chess? Not often - he's human.

The computer, on the other hand, always plays its best chess. So we are often comparing the computer's best vs. Kasparov's weak or mid-level chess, i.e. *mistakes*.

I don't think that Kasparov playing his best and making no mistakes would have any trouble with current computers. But *with* mistakes and fatigue and such...sure.

So the question really becomes, is it as fun to have the computer win when Kasparov makes a mistake? I don't think so. I think the real fun comes when he plays the best he can, is sure he can win, and has the computer do some wicked shit that no one has ever seen. When they staring thinking like humans - only better.

That doesn't seem to have happened yet. They simply have gotten good enough to be able to pounce on GMs that make mistakes, but not on good GMs that don't.

Hell, that's just my observation - I'm no chess or chess AI guru.

Re:Ranges...

[jaydee77ca]

I remember Kasparov once saying something like "I don't think the time will come when a computer can defeat the best human on his best day."

Re:Ranges...

[GlassHeart]

The easiest way to describe why Kasparov loses to a computer is because he is human. How often does he play his best chess? Not often - he's human.

Actually, chess players at Kasparov's level train mentally and physically so that they can perform at or near their peak when it matters: during a match. This is the same whether you are facing a computer or human opponent. It doesn't work every time, of course, but you make it sound as if Kasparov just walked up to the computer and started playing. No, he would've prepared for months.

Re:Ranges...

[Have Blue]

Question: When will Kasparov play his best game?

Answer: Next time.

You can't ask that the computer beat Kasparov 100% of the time for the same reason you can't guarantee 100% uptime. If the computer beats him the majority of the time over n matches for large n, the computer would be better than Kasparov's average game, and that's good enough for the record.

Although, as was pointed out in the Go thread, computers are getting faster at a far greater rate than grandmasters are getting smarter.

Re:Ranges...

[jaydee77ca]

True, however a computer has yet to defeat Kasparov in a single match, nevermind a large n. ;) (Excluding Deeper Blue which was somewhat of an enigma as Kasparov puts it) Computers may be getting faster at a greater rate than grandmasters are getting smarter but that has nothing to do with their overall ability to play chess. There is much more to chess than simply calculating and evaluating available options at a faster rate, as Kasparov demonstrated in game 3.

Man vs machine in chess and Kasparov vs. Deep Blue

[jaydee77ca]

Statistician Jeff Sonas has an interesting article on chessbase.com discussing the history of man vs. machine chess. As for the defeat of Kasparov by Deep Blue, Kasparov had some interesting comments in the Wall Street Journal on that match.

Two things:

[CdotZinger]

1) Kasparov is really good at chess.

2) People don't play by accurately calculating probabilities and choosing the most mathematically-likely-to-be-propitious move; they do something else. Whatever that "something else" is--and no one yet understands it in a pure-mathematical, mechanically reproducible way; and maybe that's not even possible--the computer's strategy isn't better.

Programmers vs Machine

[blackmonday]

I always considered electronic chess a programming challenge. Hardware should be secondary to it, we pay too much attention to it. A supercomputer with inferior software is fast inferior computer. Let the programmers be the heroes, not the hardware.

Re:Programmers vs Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I think its great that they have come this far, but what I think would be even cooler and perhaps make the machine easier to classify as "more intelligent" is if they turned the clock down to force the computer to calculate approximately the same number of moves a second a human can, so algorithms would be doing the work, not so much brute force strength.

the day of the machines...

[igotmybfg]

Theoretically, if both sides play perfectly then every match will end in a draw. So what if Kasparov plays perfectly? Obviously he's lost before, so he doesn't all the time, but it's certainly possible that he could, at least for one game (people play less-complicated games, like Tic-Tac-Toe, perfectly all the time). If so, then no matter how good the computer played it could only draw him. So really, I think chess isn't really an accurate indicator of when 'the day of the machines' is here (or not).

Re:the day of the machines...

[BobaFett]

The match would indeed end in a draw, but the games themselves may or may not. It's possible that white have a guaranteed win from the starting position. In theory it's even possible that black have a guaranteed win from the starting position, instead (it's certainly possible to come up with a simpler position where whoever starts loses, but it does not seem that the normal starting position is like that). So it may not be enough to play one game perfectly to draw it.

As far as whether 'the day of the machines' is here or not, depends on how you define it. Kasparov drew the match, but... there is only one Kasparov, while Fritz can be replicated almost infinitely (limited only by the available CPU power). Also, if one game cannot serve to determine 'the day of the machines', then how many are needed? Remember the first match between Kasparov and Karpov? Kasparov was losing badly, but managed to draw so many games that Karpov's endurance started to fail. Well, Fritz X3d can do the same to Kasparov: it plays the 100th game as well as the 1st one, if the match consists of enough games, it'll win eventually. So, is 'the day of the machines' here already?

Re:the day of the machines...

[Bastard Operator Fro]

Chess isn't a "solved" which means nobody knows what "perfect" play is.

Therefore nobody knows what "perfect" play will yield. You assume it's a draw, but many people think that white may win in perfect play.

BTW Tic Tac Toe is solved, for a draw. A couple other games are solved too. Nine Man Morris and Connect Four. Some of them are a "perfect" win for the starting player.

Re:the day of the machines...

[darnok]

> Theoretically, if both sides play perfectly then
> every match will end in a draw

Where did you pull this "fact" from? Chess isn't like noughts & crosses (tic-tac-toe); it isn't possible to map out every combination of every move and prove that a draw is guaranteed if each player makes the right moves.

It's quite possible that a "perfectly played" game will end in a white win; it's generally accepted that there is a small advantage to playing white. Alternately, it's plausible that a perfect game woudl result in a black win. There's some ridiculously large number of possible games, so NOBODY KNOWS.

Re:the day of the machines...

[Kope]

That presumes that chess is a drawn game.

While that is most PLAYER'S viewpoint, there's no mathematical proof that this is the case. It may well be that with best play white wins, or even more oddly, that with best play black wins.

We don't know. We assume that best play is a draw because otherwise it implies the game is unfair in some fundamental way. But we have no proof that this assumption is correct.

Re:the day of the machines...

[alanh]

Not quite. Chess isn't a "solved game" like tic-tac-toe. At this point, it hasn't been determined if so-called "perfect" play by both sides would lead to a draw. There exist plenty of games that end up with one or the other player winning.

Oh, thank GOD!

[oliverk]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived.

I was worried there for a second, seeing as how our potential savior has just been elected Governor of California.

Guess what....

[Eevee]

but is a car listed in Guinness under the fastest mile?

Yes.

The one-mile (1.609-km) land speed record is 1,227.985 km/h (763.055 mph), set by Andy Green in Thrust SSC in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA, on October 15, 1997. Thrust SSC (Super Sonic Car) completed its record-breaking run in a matter of seconds, but was the culmination of six years of work and a six-week on-site campaign. Two and a half years of research went into the shape of the Thrust SSC, and building the most powerful car ever took a further two years and 100,000 man-hours.

Guinness World Records

Re:Guess what....

[Ancient Devices King]

The website lists that as the fastest speed of any car, not the land speed record. They make a very clear distinction, probably for this very reason.

Re:Guess what....

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess that the land speed record is held by sub-atomic particles in partical accelerators. Those thing go nearly the speed of light!

Re:Guess what....

[Carnivorous Carrot]

They're not on the land, fool! They're flying a few feet above it.

Particles on the land move very slowly.

Re:Guess what....

[Anonymous Coward]

really? you mean the wheels dont touch the ground? If thats the case they must have been generating lift to counteract their weight. But i thought really fast cars were designed to have down force.

Re:Guess what....

[Texas Rose on Lava L]

The fast cars you're thinking of are powered the normal way - engine power is used to turn the axle, which turns the wheels, and friction between the tires and the ground causes the car to accelerate. If the car's movement creates lift, your acceleration won't be so good (less friction), hence the need for the down force you mentioned.

Most of these cars driving supersonic in the Nevada desert are powered by jet engines, which don't depend on friction between the tire (assuming they even have tires) and the ground. In this case, there's no need for down force. In fact, down force would be a bad thing because the only thing friction would do is slow the car down.

As far as I know, however, these cars don't actually lift up off the ground. If they did, wouldn't they stop being cars and start being aircraft? In which case, why bother spending 2 years designing one of these cars when you could just have the Air Force go out in the desert and fly a fighter jet really low?

Re:Thanks, But It's Old News: +1, Patriotic

[Anonymous Coward]

Suck Humble Pie? Steve Marriott. Peter Frampton. ...oh, I get it. Suck... Peter...

ewwwww

Re:I for one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Than goodness the mods have finally realized that this isn't +1, Funny.

What does it all mean?

[YouHaveSnail]

It was a pretty big deal when Babbage built a machine that could do basic arithmetic. I'm sure people thought of his Difference Engine as being a "smart" machine, particularly since it could generate tables of numbers a good deal faster than a human. But if you looked at the machine, it was all cogs and shafts and springs and levers... I'm sure that once you got over the astonishment that a machine could do this seemingly difficult thing, you'd look at it and know that it really was still just a machine, and not truly a thinking thing.

We consider ourselves to do this mysterious thing we call "thinking," but we don't understand in a precise way what this means. It could be that our brains work in an algorithmic fashion, or at least that our brains can be simulated by a machine that works in an algorithmic fashion. The former seems unlikely to me, the latter very likely. Is there a difference between actual thinking and simulated thinking? It's hard to say.

When you look at these chess-playing computers, they're pretty amazing. They can certainly play one hell of a game of chess. But when you get right down to it, they're really solid-state versions of cogs and shafts and springs and levers. Are they thinking? (I want to say 'no', but I can't prove it.) Are they simulating thinking? (Maybe... it's hard to say since we don't know what thinking entails.) Is there a difference?

Re:What does it all mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

One major difference: computers do not have the parallelity of humans. Our processing may be slower, but the bandwidth can be huge. CS is bad at parallelizing their models/HW.

Second: they miss ways to autoreflect their models with a common language.

Finally (to add some irony too): humans are only a set of neurons and actors (muscles etc) which is cleverly organized. A pretty good organization if you ask me.

Re:What does it all mean?

[HeghmoH]

Our definition of Artificial Intelligence always moves to only include things that computers haven't done yet. Before anybody had built a compiler, translating a formula like "x = (y + z * q)/w" into machine instructions was considered AI. Then some clever people figured out how to do it, and people realized it wasn't that amazing, so it wasn't AI anymore. The same happened with playing a decent game of chess, and the same happened with playing a better game of chess than a human can play. Not too long ago, a program that could take reliable dictation would have been AI. Now that you can go to a store and pick up a copy for a hundred bucks, it's no longer AI.

Can real thought be simulated? Everything known to modern physics can be simulated with a sufficiently powerful computer. If you believe that modern physics is complete enough to describe a brain, and that the brain is everything that we think with, then the simple answer is yes. Human thought can be simulated. If you believe in a "mind" or "soul" outside the brain, or if you believe that our brains rely on something beyond modern physics that can't be simulated even when we discover what it is (both perfectly legitimate beliefs, although I don't share them) then it stands to reason that it may not be possible to simulate thought.

It basically comes down to, is a person a machine? I think so. I'm not religious, so I don't think there is anything beyond what we actually see. In which case, nature has proven by example that it's possible to build a machine that thinks.

Re:What does it all mean?

[GospelHead821]

I think that we're approaching artificial intelligence in our desire to create robots to explore other planets. When I think about intelligence, I don't envision the ability perform one or any number of tasks. I envision the ability to teach myself or to be taught to perform tasks I can't currently do. Perhaps you could liken this to the installation of a new program on a computer, but I think it's a shaky analogy. If you were to provide Fritz with the rules of Go or even a game less complex than chess, like checkers or Quarto, would Fritz be able to take that basic information - a set of rules - and extrapolate it to the point where it could play the game? Could it play the game well? These, I think are the hallmarks of intelligence, taking limited information and deriving new information from it and from experience.

Re:I BEAT THIS GUY

[YouHaveSnail]

Are you sure it wasn't some 14 year old teenage girl masquerading as an old man on the Internet?

These things have been known to happen.

O right, of course, how silly

[A nonymous Coward]

proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived.

Right, so I guess we are all communicating via smoke signals or pigeons, no machines involved ... not even levers. Yep, no machines here, just us cavepersons ...

cluster

[lspd]

1 Kasparov = 4 2.8GHZ Xeons Imagine what a beowulf cluster of Kasparovs could do. Seriously though. Kasparov ties with a four processor system? The fact that he was even playing against such a modest machine seems to be an admission of defeat. In two or three years he'll be playing competitively with an imac.

Re:cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

That iMac match was arranged, but it's been delayed because they're still debating over whether Kasparov has to wear a grape or tangerine transparent plastic beanie.

Re:cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

processer speed is only important for running the algorithm.

the algorithm is crucial. the processor speed is, secondary.

Re:cluster

[Anonymous Coward]

What in two years time Apples might be upto 2.8Ghz? NEVER

As long as......

[lexsco]

....chess computers have power cables, there will always be a way to beat them.

;)

The rise of the machines hasn't happened?

[AxelTorvalds]

So let me get this straight, we send out best guy in and he plays to a draw and so the days of the machine aren't here? WTF are you smoking? Kasparov draws and you think you or I or some other chess hack (yeah, I play some games online, gone a few rounds with the chessmaster) has a snowball's chance in hell against Fritz? No way. Fritz is like the terminator robot, you have to pull his plug and squeeze him in an industrial press for you or I to beat him at chess, either that or dip him on hot lava.

"The only way to win..

[Anonymous Coward]

..is to not play."

Generalising just about any game:

If two brilliantly skilled opponents play a perfect game, their scores will be tied.

This man vs machine crap is utterly pointless.

Computers are getting smarter! Run for the hills!

[SageMadHatter]

I'm sure this will not sink in and invetiably the next /. chess news article will have replies about how we as humans can not accept computers been "smarter" than us.

This however is an incorrect line of thinking. Computers are dumb as a rock. They do know perform tasks outside of those that they were programmed for. They are not self aware. They are not intuitive. They are not conscious. They are machines, that mechanically execute the orders you feed it.

These man vs machine competitions only prove that it is us, the humans, who are getting better at developing chess algorithms.

Mad Hatter

Chess has Jumped the Shark

[b1t r0t]

Did anyone else think the "3D" part of this was complete BS on a level that would have made Barnum proud? It seemed to me that the whole point of this match was to show off the stupid display screen.

I got to see a bit of the fourth round on ESPN during lunch (without being in audio range, and it wasn't closed captioned either) and it was amusing how much it really was like watching paint dry without the commentary, and it was also amusing how dorky Kasparov looked with the goggles on.

And this isn't an issue of Chess vs Go, either. Lee Chang Ho would have looked just as dorky if he was the one wearing those goggles.

Re:Chess has Jumped the Shark

[daeley]

Arguably, Chess jumped the shark in 1972 in Iceland.

Enhancements: the coming issues

[GuyMannDude]

I was just wondering, how will the chess world handle cyborgs? Will people who have electronic "enhancements" be considered to be cheating? Heck, will they even have time to play chess, or will they be too busy taking over the world? What does everyone else think?

Oh, man, you are opening a huge can of worms on this one. Here's just a few ideas to think of:

• If you have cybernetic enhancements will you be required to disclose this information to your doctor? The government? Your employer?
• Will cybernetic implants be affordable enough that anyone who wants one can get one? Or will this just serve to increase the chasm between the rich and poor?
• Will enhancements replace race, sex, and sexual orientation as the prejudicial attribute of choice? Will employers prefer to hire people with the enhancements knowing that the employee can always be "upgraded" if the company forks over the cash? Or will employers be wary of hiring people with cybernetic implants because of their suspectability to computer virii?

I could go on and on but, seriously, the questions that are going to come up when people start modifying themsevles either genetically or cybernetically are going to be much more serious than whether they are allowed to play in "Open" chess tournaments.

GMD

Proving again it is not the time of the machines

[BoomerSooner]

Realistically it's proving it is not yet the time of the machines against this one awesome player. Hell I cannot beat chessmaster from my Apple //e, much less a damn supercomputer.

the Day of the Machines

[kaan]

The final match result is a 2.0 - 2.0 draw, proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived.

So let me get this straight, there's one guy out there who wasn't totally creamed by this computer, and even though that very same computer would totally annihilate any other opponent on the chess board, that means "the day of the machines has not arrived"? What? So when Gary Kasparov is dead, and that same computer is able to destroy every other human opponent, I guess everyone will say, "the machines have now arrived!"

Obviously, there's another level that computerized chess systems have yet to attain; that is, totally obliterating all human opponents, all the time, which would include Gary Kasparov. But I don't think it's fair to make a comment like "the machines have not arrived", because they have arrived, and they're doing very damn well against almost every human on the planet.

Re:the Day of the Machines

[rdean400]

Umm, dude, the computer can't beat anything without the humans telling it how to think. It's not really the computer spanking the pants off of human chess players...it's an implementation of a human-developed probabilistic algorithm.

Mod parent -1 Redundant

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been posted before. The poster is just a karma whore.

Kasparov drew the game?

[PollGuy]

I thought the X3D was supposed to draw the games. Did something happen to its graphics card?

Re:Kasparov is a bad choice x1488

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew I'd seen this somewhere....

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=7168514&sid= 81 644

Karmawhore!

have to be said

[nsebban]

In your face, sky-net ! :)

Indeed

[JMZero]

This phase will pass. They used to race cars against horses, and for a time they might have lumped them together in a speed record/contest.

But there's no motorbikes in the Kentucky Derby.

I think competitive human chess will survive long after machines are much better at the game. It'll be interesting to see if play styles wildly diverge once computers are both better than us and geared to playing each other.

Kasparov?

[lee7guy]

I bet Jernau Gurgeh would beat Kasparov hands down, any day.

Re:Kasparov?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Kasparov play Azad? ;)

This sort of thing winds me up

[Jiminez]

I hate these sort of stories because people read so much crap into them. If you view it as it actually is then fair enough, but if you think this has anything to do with Artificial Intelligence or Machine-Thought you couldn't be further off. This is the extended life of a festering academic dead end that started 30 or so years ago and is wasting time and resources, that could be spent on real research into AI. This is SIMULATED INTELLIGENCE, a machine that does nothing but churn through a DB's and apply brute force search with a coupla crappy heuristics, in an attempt to simulate the appearance of what a human does truly intelligently. The definition of AI should be the research of systems that deal with INFINITE Problem spaces. This is the *miracle of real intelligence* - that we can be addressed with problems with infinite search spaces such as simply walking or crossing a road, and somehow, despite the infinite possibilities come out with a perfect solution. You ever seen a computer try and cope with exponential chaos of juggling? A human can learn in an hour. Chess is a big space but of course a number cruncher will eventually be able to solve it. The real intelligence is how the hell a human is capable of it at all given our limited resources. Build a synthetic machine that can play chess *as a human does*, THEN your on the money, and on the way to creating true AI.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[YouHaveSnail]

What, if any, is the difference between "simulated intelligence" and "actual intelligence"? How do you know that our brains don't function as massivlely parallel search/inference engines?

Discussions about AI usually degenerate pretty quickly into arguments about whether or not we have some invisible, intangible, God-given "soul" or "spirit" or "spark." You're use of the phrase "*miracle of real intelligence*" would lead me to guess that you'd probably come down on the side that favors such a thing.

We humans are self-aware, yet we have not yet explained the mechanism of our self-awareness. Many of us assume that it therefore cannot be explained, that it is miraculous. I think that's a poor assumption. It may be, however, that we are incapable of understanding our own self-awareness, and incapable of understanding our own intelligence. Whether that's true or not, it does not follow that other animals and even machines cannot develop intelligence.

Why is it necessary to build a machine that plays chess "*as a human does*"? It's unlikely that any two humans play chess the same way, so which human would you have the machine emulate? Wouldn't it be better to build a machine that plays chess its own way?

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[metalix]

A machine is only as good as the program which it runs.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[gangien]

Why is it necessary to build a machine that plays chess "*as a human does*"? It's unlikely that any two humans play chess the same way, so which human would you have the machine emulate? Wouldn't it be better to build a machine that plays chess its own way?

Machines do play chess their own way, that is why Kasparov was able to tie.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[gaspacho_soup]

well as i see it, "artificial intelligence" is basically just a whole set of conditional statements, e.g. say we had a rock paper scissors simulator we could say IF(user = rock) print paper whearas normal intelligence is just the ability to make our own choices for things.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[YouHaveSnail]

normal intelligence is just the ability to make our own choices

That's a pretty big 'just'. You could build a rock paper scissors simulator using a decent random number generator, and it would win as often as it lost. Humans, on the other hand, play using actual strategies in order to try to win more often than they lose, which is interesting.

It's that very act of making our own choices that we don't understand. And if we could understand it, perhaps we'd have a good start at building machines that could make their own choices as well.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[Jiminez]

There is an old AI puzzle called the Chinese Room. I won't go through retelling it but what it boils down to is that if something appears to be exhibiting Intelligent behaviour then, whatever it is doing, we should deem it intelligent.

I don't agree with this outlook - processes are important. If something appears to be doing something intelligent but underneath its macro-processes inherently aren't, this is what I term SIMULATED intelligence (as in the case of this chess program exhaustively searching a database of possible move outcomes)

Nevertheless this of course brings up the question of how do you define an intelligent process occurring underneath. To reiterate, to me this is:

"The ability to Solve a Task with an infinite Problem space"

Chess to an incredible digitised number cruncher is not infinite. It has a colossal but ultimately finite number of board states and moves. But to a human it *is* infinite, or might as well be. We simply cannot get anywhere near coping with consideration of every possible move, and we're certainly light years behind the computers processing power.

Yet somehow we can deal with this search space - this is ACTUAL intelligence in my book. Noone knows how we do it but its certainly ingrained in our ability to Learn and feel out a situation without a firm grip of meta knowledge.

Now a computer that could also overcome this problem without brute force would represent ARTIFICIAL intelligence, the holy grail of computer science. Reduce the search tree of the code to approach a humans abilities (limit how far the computer can look ahead in moves) and force researchers to deal with *that* situation, and just watch the snowball of advancement in all areas of Artificial Intelligence that would ensue.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[YouHaveSnail]

[Intelligence is] The ability to Solve a Task with an infinite Problem space

That's a nice idea, but it doesn't help much. For one thing, it's most likely wrong. Examples of computers solving problems in "infinite" problem spaces are many. The realm of numbers is infinite, yet computers can do things such as solve complex systems of equations and prove theorems. What's more, humans often make mistakes, which is to say that the solutions we find to problems are often not the best ones.

Chess to an incredible digitised number cruncher is not infinite. It has a colossal but ultimately finite number of board states and moves. But to a human it *is* infinite, or might as well be. We simply cannot get anywhere near coping with consideration of every possible move, and we're certainly light years behind the computers processing power.

I'm no expert on the subject, but I'm pretty sure that chess programs don't work entirely by brute force. They look at the available moves, weed out the ones that are obviously bad, and consider more deeply the moves that are not obviously bad. This would seem to be similar to what humans do. And human chess playing may rely more heavily on brute force than we know... we don't consciously look at hundreds of moves per second, but it may be that our brains do exactly that, and only bother to inform the conscious part of us about the ones that are looking pretty good.

Re:This sort of thing winds me up

[Jiminez]

You may be right. These are all ideas. Your right about chess not relying solely on brute force, I just stressed that because it does have a colossal advantage in that aspect - our neurons just can't fire quick enough physically to process that many board states. I think that (maybe precariously) the mathematical systems examples you give are a bit off in terms of search spaces as swathes can be ruled out in many - but they still probably offer more to AI than the current chess machines (which is my point really).

This is not a problem with the algorithm

[kavau]

Actually this particular example is not really about algorithms, since all that Fritz did as this stage in the game is choose between different lines in his opening encyclopedia.

Strictly speaking, of course, this is also done by an algorithm (since everything a computer does, is), but that's beside the point. It is the human developers who decide which opening lines Fritz favors. So obviously the developers must have overlooked this line, or they simply hadn't enough time to go through Fritz's entire opening encyclopedia.

Meh,

[JMZero]

Barring a sudden barrier to computer research, computers will beat us at Go someday. Soundly. It's a big game, but it's deterministic and fairly easy to comprehend.

If our only goal is to find a game that we're better at, how about "fashion design" or "turning Twinkies into poop" or "writing sit-com episodes, not including Friends".

Re:Meh,

[DeltaSigma]

Because Friends is clearly the product of an algorithm... ...seriously.

Re:Meh,

[Abcd1234]

Err, and how is Chess less "deterministic" and "easy to comprehend"? Heck, Chess has far more formal rules, meaning it's more structured, and hence a more natural fit for computers, since it can be more easily described.

Anyway, even if we can develop computers that are far faster than what we have today, the search space in Chess is FAR FAR smaller than that of Go (due to the more restrictive ruleset and larger board)... a few orders of magnitude smaller. Moreover, the value of a given move in Go is far more difficult to assess, meaning even if you could explore the aforementioned search space quickly, traditional a-b trees would likely be less effective.

So, in essence, I don't expect to see a computer play Go at a pro Dan level in my lifetime.

Re:Enhancements: the coming issues

[nizo]

Wow, interesting comments indeed. Did you think these up, or is there some spiffy sci-fi that I am missing that brought these points up already?

Parent: OMG!! WHAT A KARMA WHORE -1 -1 -1

[Anonymous Coward]

Redundant... been posted here before.

Is It (Really) Over For Humans?

[Alan_DBA]

The final game of the X3D "Man versus Machine" 2003 Chess Championship has ended in a 27-move draw. Going into today's final game, the match was tied with both Kasparov and the computer each having won a game and drawn a game; for a match score of 1.5 to 1.5. With today's draw, the final match score is 2.0 to 2.0. Had Kasparov won today, he would have won the match, but it was not to be ... This must be a disappointment for Garry as he probably feels (with some justification) that he should have won the match. In fact, he WAS winning Game 2 (the only game of the match he actually lost) when he committed a horrendous blunder under time pressure and instantly lost to the machine. Had Kasparov not committed that error, he [probably] would have went on to victory as he was clearly ahead at that point in Game 2. So, Garry has defended the honor of humanity - for at least another year. I guess this can be looked at as a case of the glass being both half empty and half full - depending on your point of view. On the one hand, it is a human triumph that Garry Kasparov was able to withstand the machine's onslaught, (and in one of the games even handed the machine its head!), especially considering the fact that Garry is 40 years old and still playing top-level chess. (Most human grandmasters, by the time they reach 40, are far past their prime; and Garry may be well past his prime ...) The downside is that next year (for Garry) will be tougher. Fritz's programming team has undoubtedly "gone to school" on this match and probably has a multitude of ideas for further improving the machine's play. If "Fritz's" programmers are smart, they will expend great effort in trying to program more "chess knowledge" (and knowledge-based hueristics) into the machine. (This is what they will have to do in order to avoid embarrassments such as what occurred in Game 3 when Kasparov humiliated the machine and cruised to an easy victory.) Basically, they will attempt to program greater ability for Fritz to demonstrate sound "strategic judgment" in areas such as pawn structure, strong and weak squares, "good" versus "bad" bishops, open versus closed positions, and a ton of other intangible factors that are second nature to [human] grandmasters. What we're really talking about here is the human's (Kasparov's) superiority in long range planning. If the programmers go home saying, "All we need to do is just get the machine to see "deeper" (i.e. calculate further down into each position), then next year will likely be a repeat of this year. Chess (good chess) is NOT mere "brute force" calculation: Kasparov clearly demonstrated this in Game 3. The difficulty for Fritz's programming team is that programming chess "knowledge" into a machine is exceedingly difficult. It's NOT the same as storing an "Opening Library" of canned moves into the machine's memory. One must feel some [human] empathy for Garry Kasparov. Playing against a monster such as Fritz is a grueling experience for a flesh-and-blood human being - for ANY flesh-and-blood human being. I have played against a commercial version of Fritz. I am (barely) an average woodpusher. The best I have ever achieved against the program was forcing it to "think" for about 4 minutes on one position (in one game) at full strength. I have never beaten Fritz (or any of the other chess playing programs) under a standard time control of 40 moves in two hours. One has the feeling, (when locked in battle against a program like "Fritz" or "Deep Junior"), of being surrounded and squeezed - as if you're trapped in the coils of a python - gasping for air. It is really hard for a human to hold up under that kind of unrelenting pressure. That is the advantage that the machine has ... It will be interesting to see whether Garry has also "gone to school" on Fritz and is better prepared for next year's rematch. There are still ways for the human to beat the machine, (as was demonstrated in Game 3), but it's getting harder. If "Fritz's" programmers make substantial progress in imparting new chess knowledge into the machine; I fear that humans' days [of chess superiority] will be over. Alan C. Lawhon - Carbon-Based Bigot

Programmers

[Aliencow]

What if Kasparov was also an efficient coder? He could code a machine that thinks as well as he does, but much faster !

The day of the machines

[mabu]

So the human staves off the computer to once again prove that The day of the machines has not arrived.

I guess maybe one day they will arrive, and on that day we'll depend upon them for learning and education, scientific research, commerce and trade, communications, navigation, healthcare, transportation, security, comfort, convenience, entertainment and defense. But until then, the days of the humans prevail!

Re:Enhancements: the coming issues

[GuyMannDude]

Thanks for the compliment. Actually, I just thought this up right off the top of my head but I'm sure there are tons more. I really don't read any science fiction books at all but I'm sure there are plenty out there that would think up much more interesting issues. Can anyone name some?

GMD

Which took more time?

[Ancient Devices King]

To program the computer, or for Kasparov to learn to play as well as he does now? Shouldn't we take into account that he has 3 decades of experience, while the computer was programmed in a matter of years (at most)?

Before someone asks: no, I wouldn't take into account that the programmers had to "teach" the computer chess and so had to learn it themselves. I would regard this as the equivalent of a human reading a book on chess to get the insight of previous players.

Sexual selection

[mestar]

Consider that the brain evolved to keep the person alive (primary funciton),

Wrong. Its primary function is that of sexual selection. Read those books:

The mating mind
The red queen

and see for yourself. :)


and then think about just how "over-engineered"...


Yes, because that is not the brain's primary function. those 'survival benefits' came much later.

The brain is primarly designed for humor,arts, telling stories and enyojing watching naked women and judging social status, and even that is what it is mostly used today. I'm not joking, read those two books, they will open your eyes...

Once (and if) AI develops sex and sexual reproduction, who knows which way it will go... :)

Re:Sexual selection

[Space cowboy]

Or, you could read "The runaway brain" for a coffee-table-type treatment, or Kauffman's "The origins of order" if you have good maths.

The brain is sure as hell not designed for arts and humour... These may be bi-products which have become socially important and hence selected for, but they definitely weren't a "goal"

"Goals" were things like breathing & bodily control, judgment, and ultimately planning. That there's about 90% of our history. Walking upright came a lot later... The earliest "art" we know of (French caves, can't remember the place's name...) was so recent on evolutionary time, that you could blink and miss it.

If you're talking cro-magnon onwards, then perhaps the things you mentioned play some part. I still dispute "primary function" though...

Simon.

Re:Sexual selection

[mestar]

I was indeed thinking of the recent human evolution. If you check those sources, you'll see that it is a much more satisfying solution for hard problems in explaining arts and humor. Humor as a byproduct? Of what? :)

In a same way that is it much more logical to look at bodies as vehicles to carry and spread genes (Dawkins), it is also much more natural to look at the human brain as a way to advertise those same genes around. So, if you take a look from that angle, brains are actually just entertainment centers for attracting and entertaining the opposite sex. Even monkeys are excellent at surviving, and you would have a hard time that arguing that all that recent processing power in human brains is there for survival only.

As for why sexual selection is not as known as 'survival' is because, it is about sex, so they don't teach it in schools, not so many articles about it, etcK But, it fits the situation much better. For example, if humor is a byproduct of survival, it should be equally there in both sexes, but most stand-up comics and most artists are male. Sexual selection works much harder against males, males have to work much more to find a mate, and while there are some men that have like 10.000 children, there a lot more that have none. For women it is much easier to find a sperm donor, all they have to do is to spread their legs. :)

So, if you look at ornamental feathers in male birds, it is the same with men and brains. :)

Btw, thanks for the book recommendations.

Clarification

[Pac]

In order to draw the match he had to beat the machine once, on game three (match ended 2-2 with two draws and a victory for each side).

Re:Clarification

[Sodium Attack]

And the computer beat him once, in game two, so if you're referring to individual games rather than matches, Kasparov is still not "capable of beating the machines anytime, anywhere."

Re:Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you get more anal retentive, fuckass?

The sentiment is pretty fucking clear. On any given game between Kasparov and any computer, Kasparov is one of the few people in the world capable of winning.

Re:Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

Your childish resort to name calling, belies the fact that you've already lost the argument. The original statement was clearly wrong. I'm sorry that you can't accept that, but your attempt to change its meaning and claim victory, is transparent and invalid.

The day of the machines.

[MongooseCN]

"...proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived."

But when it does, don't worry. We have the governer of Cahleefornia to protect us.

What you have not realized....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that a four 'perfect' games of chess will always have the same outcome, no matter how many times played.

Watched it on ESPN

[strictnein]

Stopped home from work for lunch today and caught part of the "match". Picked it up around turn 13 (I believe) wich Kasparov took around 19-20 minutes to complete. It was slow paced, but strangely very interesting to watch. I still don't get why he doesn't get a real chess board in front of him, instead of the stupid computer screen and the "X3D" glasses.

Re:Watched it on ESPN

[Sheridan]

> I still don't get why he doesn't get a real chess
> board in front of him, instead of the stupid
> computer screen and the "X3D" glasses.

Well that, at least, is easy to explain. The match was sponsored by X3D.

is it fair?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the first set of games they are playing.
Kasparov doesn't know anything about the computer, especially its weak points. On the other hand, computer knows every game he played.
For the sake of fairness, they should play with each other for practice for some time.

Computer cannot come up with new strategies unlike Kasparov. Untill it can search all of the space, Kasparov will have the advantage of adaptive playing.

It's called correspondence chess

[kap1]

Already happened. Correspondence or "postal" chess has seen the use of computers -- at first in a clandestine fashion, then legally -- for quite some time.

Definitely the computer + human is better than a human, but in postal, a human kicks the computers ass.

That's because the extra time isn't so valuable for a computer, but a human can really scope out all the heuristic nuances of a position.

Amen to that

[Rick and Roll]

Yeah, while humans are clearly helped by reading opening books, humans with a mathematical mind can invent them on the spot, to do at least a decent job (though an idea of "decent" varies a lot). It would definitely be a good show of AI for a computer to be able to do that, and they'd probably be closer to figuring out how to get computers to compete with humans in go.

Re:Computers are getting smarter! Run for the hill

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonderful. So when the computers start swarming across North America, turning their plasma weapons on every human in sight, we can take comfort knowing that they're "calculating," not thinking, and that they're perfectly under our control because, hey, we programmed their AimLaserAtPeskyHuman() subroutine ourselves.

This is your vat filled with strawberry jello. This is your feeding tube. I think you'll be very happy here, Mr. Anderson.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Realistically it's proving it is not yet the time of the machines against this one awesome player. Hell I cannot beat chessmaster from my Apple //e, much less a damn supercomputer.

Yup. Chessmaster surpassed my skills some time back. At some point, the decision making (rules) of the best players will be captured in code like other expert applications. After that, what is the point? The computer will never get tired or lose concentration. It will just prove that mankind can make machines that do a single task better than we can. It won't be the first time, and it won't be a *thinking* machine - just another specialized machine. It does not take a great programmer to write a program that cannot lose at tic-tac-toe against a human. It's only a matter of degree and processor power.

Undersating 'why' is not necessary

[GuyMannDude]

It could upload its program, but it could not describe abstractly why that program works.

It doesn't have to! My entire point is that because computers operate according to precise instructions they can exchange 'abilities' effortlessly. Let's say there are two 'classes' of computers: 'Thinkers' that have enough AI to be able to write their own software (ala Data from ST:TNG) and 'Drones' that can only execute existing programs written by others. The machines would only need a few Thinkers to be working in the background and let the Drones be responsible for carrying out the orders/instructions. Thinkers spend all their resources developing excellent programs that could defeat a human at any number of contests. Once satisfied with the performance of the program they are developing, they upload it to all the Drones. Now all the Drones are just as good at defeating a human at that specific contest as the Thinker would be. The Thinker does not need to explain why the program works to the Drones. As long as the Drones run the program, they will kick holy-ass against the humans even though they have no fucking clue what the hell they are doing.

Computers have a vastly superior ability to describe in precise format the steps needed to solve a problem than humans. Let's say you -- a human -- come up with a fantastic algorithm/strategy/approach for playing chess. Great: you can kick ass. Now what about the rest of humanity? First, you've got to develop a precise and concise way of recording your algorithm/strategy/approach. Just because you were smart enough to come up with a brilliant strategy there is no guarantee that you'll be able to communicate this well. Second, even if you did come up with some brilliant way of encoding your masterful approach, it would likely be beyond the abilities of many humans (think Pam Anderson here) to execute your instructions flawlessly. And third, how fast can you get your solution out and assimilated by everyone? Certainly not nearly as fast as computers could.

This is the real problem. If only a few computers are very smart, they can essentially transmit their skill in a single, specific, well-defined task (such as playing chess) to all the other dummy computers out there. We humans will never be able to do this. And that is why if there is ever a struggle between humanity and the machines that we will lose. Our brightest minds might be better than their brighest minds. But they will be able to make their lower end perform much better than our lower end.

GMD

Basically all this proves...

[Doverite]

...is that chess has been maxed out. On the level that Kasparov and the machine play they are so balanced that there are no garanteed winning or losing positions. Kasparov might err in some sublte way and the computer could take advantage or the computer plays what it sees as the statiscally safest maneuver but that doesn't make it invulnerable. I figure these matches will continue for a little while longer and then people will get tired draws and statistically insignificant wins/losses in both directions.

Thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

That post opened up Excel and crashed my computer, you thoughtless fool.

This is not Artificial Intelligence

[z00z]

... proving yet again that the day of the machines has not yet arrived. And it is still very far away IMHO.

Chess playing programs take advantage of higher CPU speeds, smart tree-traversal routines and other heuristics to explore as many possiblities as they can in a given amount of time, before deciding what the next best move is. Now, I'm not dismissing this as wrong or useless. In fact such techniques are extremely useful in a variety of applications. Call them anything you like, but please don't call them "Intelligent". They are more of a brute force approach where each possible move is checked and the best one is chosen, (although I agree that they do give the impression of intelligent behaviour).

To me, "intelligence" is the ability to adapt to new, unknown environments, and to come up with novel ideas that are outside of a given repertoire. Games of Complete Information like chess do not qualify as test beds for AI. Ask X3D Fritz to calculate the area of the unit circle, and you'll know what I mean. The only reason chess has become such a standard for judging AI is that early AI researchers at MIT made it a goal to write a chess-playing program that can beat humans (for an interesting history of those days, check out "Hackers" by Steven Levy).

There is definitely lots of real research in AI going on. This is just not one of them.

Who cares

[Wolfier]

>We are now on the verge of machines beating us
>at our own game so to speak

Or rather, the designers and operators of these machines beating us.

Machines are tools. A tool can only "beat" other tools in terms of usefulness.

Unless you lower your level to some tool, you're still above the machines, because you use the tool, not the other way round.

Why do people think these games "prove" anything?

[surfcow]

>"... proving yet again that the day of the
>machines has not yet arrived."

Why do people think these games "prove" anything? Go ahead, "prove" that man is smarter than machine or vice versa. It's a game. It's not AI. We can't even agree on what native human intelligence is, much less artificial intelligence. A different class of problem.

An Interesting Match.

[TygerFish]

One thing that has been pointed out by numerous posters is the belief that the final result of the match is the result of one bad move in one of the earlier games.

This is not necessarily meaningful. Either player could have played better or worse in any of the positions that came about in the ensuing games, making the actual match results the stuff of speculation about alternate universes.

Be that as it may, two things stand out about the match. The first is that the computer opponent is actually a commercial program running on commercially available hardware and not on specialized circuitry out of a lab somewhere. This alone is a very good indicator of how far computers have come as chess players. Not too long ago (at least in geological terms), there wasn't a chess program on earth that could win against the like of me. Nowadays, by contrast, commercial desktop hardware combined with shrinkwrapped software are giving a former world-champion a run for his money.

The second point of interest in the final game is Kasparov's choice of defenses.

Kapararov is one of the world's greatest experts on the opening--someone who prepares not just against continuations but against his most likely opponents--and yet, with the game and the match on the line he, chose to not play any of the 'milder' defenses to 1.d4 (for example, trying to reprise the line of the Gruenfeld he played against Karpov in one of their matches) but instead chose to play the black side of the Queen's gambit accepted.

When I was growing up and studying, the queen's gambit accepted was known to offer white good chances to develop a strong initiative based on black's disadvantages in central space and white's rapid development, and venturing the black side of Queen's gambit accepted was considered risky.

Apparently, Kasparov knows something I didn't when I was fifteen (duh).

Still, Kasparov's choice of opening certainly led to a difficult position requiring an accurate defense after white developed significant pressure on black's central pawn and on the queenside. However, the pressure rapidly dissipated following a set of exchanges that even gave black a short-lived counterattack on white's king position, leading to a position with even material and no real sources of play for either side, hence the draw.

It would have been interesting to see what would have happened in a longer match played under a different winning criterion like 'best-of-ten' or 'first to achieve a given score.'

How good were the VR goggles?

[Nept]

It must have been a rather good pair of VR goggles if Kasparov could have kept then on for the duration of a match. I mean, if you think about how hard you would be concentrating on the images during a chess match, you would expect significant eye strain to develop.

Is chess complex enough?

[ChaseTec]

Isn't it a possibility that a game of chess can be played equally well by humans and computers. Just see it as tic tac toe carried to the nth degree. The really question is would a human ever design a game with enough complexity that we could never truly master it? Maybe we'll just have to wait for the computers to design the game themselves one day....

I, for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

welcome our new computer overlords.

EXACTLY 2.0 to 2.0

[chargen]

Not 2.1 to 1.9? Hrmmm...

and won't be for a while...

[mantera]

In the previous game a couple of days ago or so he won against the machine by playing in a way that was described by chess critics as "silly"; he just abandoned traditional chess and constructed a wall of pawns that just confused the computer.

Back in 1989-90 I had a somewhat expensive top of the range chess computer, which price was more than the monthly wage of my dad's chauffeur; (he was into chess too, played against me at times and against the machine, and when he asked me how much it cost i couldn't answer him.. anyway...) the only way i was able to win against that machine was by using nothing other than pawns and knights and by building a wall of pawns. I had an encyclopedia of chess openings and nothing worked against the machine other than that, well, not at my level. Several games later the machine had learnt how to break my wall-building manouvres and it never worked afterwards.

Kasparov the best? Baahh...

[fbg111]

...the best chess player ever born was alive to hold the fort for a while longer.

No, if Bobby Fischer were still around today, he'd be kicking Deep Fritz and Deep Blue's butts with one cranial lobe tied behind his back. As it is, we humans just have to make do with Gary carrying the standard...

It plays chess, I think, therefore... What?

[strangedays]

As several posters astutely point out, this doesn't prove much of anything, except perhaps the fascination folks have in the man vs machine philosophical conundrum. But WTF..., seems to me this occasional chess AI-Opera, is a small but valid part of exploring the mystery of our intelligence. Anything that gives us a point of comparison, or some datum points about how minds operate, however limited by arbitrary rules of engagement, is probably useful. Per Penrose, et-al, this mind stuff does seem to be genuinely hard to understand, a real frontier in our grokking of our selves. Some think, (and some philosophers just successfully simulate thinking), that there are fundamental limits to self reflection, and that we cannot describe and thus deliberately (by design) supercede our own intelligence. Bogus, IMHO, but then IANANAI (I think).

But it is true that most guys would probably pay big bucks to understand how women think some of the time! The reverse may be true, no man knows! However this problem does not necessarily mean we cannot succeed in creating, a singular intelligence, probably by blind chance the method apparently favored by AI researchers. Or by an exhaustive search for LGM.

Seems we need a valid comparison in order to place our own intelligence into context and help us understand mankinds version of mind, yes yes even womens minds (plural?), ok weak joke now ended...

The discovery thing seems favorite to me, SETI would be justified simply by providing us with an existence proof that other intelligences can and do arise. Big bonus points if we get to communicate and infer how they think, or what they think with. Hmm, maybe they could help us with our significant other genders mind? What do we do if an Aliens first question is can we help them understand how their females think. Thats scary.

I think the machines will have arrived, when they get here with the beer, chicks and a suitcase full of cash. (Two out of three works for me). We can save the intelligent philosophical repartee until morning thanks.

Here's a poem about AI, written when I was out of my own tiny mind...

Man, the emperor mind,
clothes of ancient dna, woven wetware,
flesh and bone deconstructs, slashdots,
occams digital razor, strips the meat,
philosophy dances naked, logic unveiled,
a purists beautiful quantum enigma,
AI, mind less Man.

Ok, that was short and artificially pointless, now back to the endless chess match algorithm equals nascent AI debate...

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

At some point, the decision making (rules) of the best players will be captured in code like other expert applications.

Attempts to make Turing type B (rulebased, heuristic) chess programs have failed so far, all strong playing programs today are of type A (brute force, with perhaps a little heuristics). You can't just make up simple rules for playing chess, those rules will not account for all possible positions on the board; what's good in one position can be instantly losing in another one.

For instance, even the little heuristics in a type A program such as Fritz can be uttlery wrong. Fritz lost the third game to Kasparov because there was a heuristic programmed into it not to push pawns that protect the king, while Kasparov had chosen an opening that resulted in a position where Fritz' only hope in the long term was to do exactly that. Fritz had not enough processor power to look that far into the game, and Kasparov knew it.

After that, what is the point?

The point is to create machines that play chess better than humans do now, so humans can learn from them and get new insights about the game. We know that it's impossible to play perfect chess (because there are more positions possible than there are atoms in the universe), but we also know that what humans (and computers) play today is still very far from perfect.

It won't be the first time, and it won't be a *thinking* machine - just another specialized machine.

Yeah, the classical AI bait 'n switch. First it's really intelligent to play a nice game of chess or do complicated mathematical equations, but as soon as computers can do it it's no longer thinking. The solution would be to sit down and define what thinking exactly is, except nobody has ever succeeded in doing just that.

It does not take a great programmer to write a program that cannot lose at tic-tac-toe against a human.

Yeah, but at the same time no one has written a chess program that cannot lose against a human. Humans still play better chess than computers do, even though the difference between them is getting smaller.

The day for computers in chess isn't too far off

[epidemic99]

According to x3dchess.com, Karparov's chess rating is 2830 and x3dfritz's estimated rating is 2807. That difference is pretty minimal. The current software available on regular PC's such as chessmaster can beat 95% of chess players. It is only a matter of time before the combination of software and hardware improvements will provide a computer that can consistently beat a world chess champion. I am not sure when this will happen, but my best guess is in about 5 years. The software usually runs on supercomputers though, which seems almost like a unfair advantage. It will be really be special when an "off the shelf" computer can kick a world champions butt without a problem.

Re:Kasparov the best? Baahh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bobby Fischer is a psychotic, viscious anti-Semetic racist of a kook.

Not going to happen

[cubicledrone]

When a computer wins a poker tournament, then we can talk about the "day of the machines." Until then, it's nothing more than a series of mathematical calculations, not a test of chess strategies.

sigh

[dh003i]

similar result to Fritz (original) tying Kramnick. Fritz X3D ties Kasparov.

This doesn't prove that humans are better at chess than computers. This proves that Gary Kasparov is better (or can be better) at chess than current computer programs. Gary Kasparov is the top chess player in the world.

What does that mean? That means that out of probably about a billion people who can play chess, there's only two of them -- Kramnick and Kasparov -- who can play well enough to draw the best chess programs. Hardly a resounding victory for humanity. Braggings rights for Kasparov and Kramnick, but not a one big stem for humanity.

the pivital moment

[dh003i]

I believe Bobby Fisher said something like, "The key moment for me was when I realized that black should play to win."

Fritz Kasparov Games

[onegoodmove]

I've posted all the games in pgn, HTML with diagrams, and also available in a Java Viewer

Computers are shite.

[Chess_the_cat]

They cheat. They check every possible move and then assign a value. That's not playing chess. That's adding 2+2. There is no planning, no strategy, no psychology. They don't emulate their favorite players, they don't try the high risk maneuver. They can't deviate from their bloody opening book which extends well into the middle game these days. Imagine if matches between GMs were open book. Pretty funny right? Well, computers are allowed open books. They've got their endgame book too. Give me MCO and Practical Chess Endings and put me up against some dude and I'll win too. When a machine is built that can be taught nothing more than just the rules of chess and then proceed to beat the reigning World Champion I'll be impressed. Until then, forget it.

Well I for one...

[Trejkaz]

Well I for one welcome our new sex robot overlords. No, really. As long as they service humans occasionally *shrug*

karma whore..

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did you steal this? I've read it word-for-word before.

Bah

[Trejkaz]

Well I tell you what, I used to think Slashdot was full of geeks and not nerds, but after reading some of the commentary on this here chess article, I think nerds is right.

Re:Kasparov the best? Baahh...

[Anonymous Coward]

So?

He's still best at chess.

P.S. You're a retard.

How to beat chess computers

[B.D.Mills]

If you read the analyses, there's some advice for beating chess computers.

Chess computers have large opening databases. If they can make a database move, while the human has to think, the computer gets the edge due to the reduced amount of time they need to make a database move.

During the games, Kasparov tried to play unusual moves in the opening to knock the computer out of its database as early as possible. One example from game 2 is Kasparov's move 8...Re8, which is annotated with "This move by Kasparov had never been played before in this exact position." This knocked Fritz out of its opening database, and forced it to calculate.

A more striking example of the way to beat chess computers is the great wall of pawns that dominated game 3. Chess computers cannot evaluate such positions properly. If you built a wall of pawns like that, and snuck your forces behind them, you are a good chance of winning because the computer cannot calculate deeply enough.

Some more info here and here.

I see

[citizenc]

I see. That makes sense -- and, as the poster you're replying to pointed out, white does have the advantage. That never really occured to me. Merci. :)

Re:Kasparov the best? Baahh...

[Anonymous Coward]

He is still around and he's probably no longer the best at chess. There are certainly a few better players than him and Kasparov would be one of them.

No...

[Dusabre]

If every move is perfect, white wins as white has the opening move advantage. If the number of games is even - end result is a draw. Doesn't mean every game is a draw.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[smallfries]

I was about to mod you down but it seems that it would be better to point out where you're wrong (for a change on slashdot ;^). Whilst all early chess programs were mainly brute force with tree reduction the current generation use quite advanced heuristics to evalutate board position - precisely because this effectively increases their search depth by a few ply without such a high cost in computation. The source code for one of the earlier IBM machines is out on the web somewhere (I think it was deep blue, whichever one came first) and is loaded with these heuristics. This is the 'tuning' referred to between games in the match by the fritz programmers, reweighting these heuristics against each other.

I don't think that what you refer to is a bait 'n switch in the arguing sense. There are lots of problems that have seemed to indicate thinking which have been explored and found to be pure logic or mechanics. There are quite good working definitions for AI, it's just that nobody has come close to ever fulfilling them. Chess is certainly not an example of AI, it's just a search problem.

A true AI would be something that was capable of learning. Not simply training, like a neural net or having its heuristics reweighted, but something that could generalise experience from one domain into another domain to form plans of actions. Minsky at MIT springs to mind as somebody who is trying to nail down this big picture approach to AI but AFAIK nobody has come up with any problem domain that are both complex enough to demonstrate this behaviour but simple enough to understand. A real breakthrough in this area is going to have to wait until the genetics lottery gives us an Einstein or a Laplace in AI.

Re:Kasparov the best? Baahh...

[khufure]

Bobby played in a tournament just a few years ago. He's not nearly the player he once was; Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, Short, or pretty much any grandmaster would wipe the floor with him today.

day of the ...

[amuzulo]

The final match result is a 2.0 - 2.0 draw, proving yet again that the day of the humans is over.

Re:How many matches does it take...

[Anonymous Coward]

what the hell is the rest of the population even doing here? please leave.

Machines passed humans years ago

[386spart]

They are now at the stage where they remove CPU's and add fancy 3D-interfaces to compensate. A machine like deep blue with today's hardware would dish out humiliating defeat to anyone, including Kasparov.
In order to continue the amusing and money-making man vs machine challenges they need some "cripple" obviously, but I fear we'll see the day when headlines scream "Kasparov draws the Nintendo gamesquare!" if this continues. Someone will probably call that a proof of machine inferiority as well. ;)
I think a more fair and honest way to keep the playing field level would be to prevent reprogramming between matches, have multiple random human opponents so no opponent-specific tweaking can be made. Let the top 5 players challenge the computer in turn. If any of them manages to win, humans still rule.
When even that is not enough, remove the multi-gigabyte opening databases from the chess program. The openings have been analysed and evaluated by humans over the course of chess history, and without that knowledge I'm sure Kasparov, or any half-decent grandmaster for that matter, would play circles around any machine for decades to come.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

Ik know there is heuristics in brute force programs (you can only evaluate the material if you want true brute force), but the point is these programs are still of Turing type A, they do brute force searches. If the programs would be type B they would have a big ruleset and select the appropriate rule(s) to play a given position, but not do brute force searches.

Chess is certainly not an example of AI, it's just a search problem.

If you generalize like this then all problem solving is just searching the problem space. The real problem is that the problem space is too big to do an extensive search.

Minsky at MIT springs to mind as somebody who is trying to nail down this big picture approach to AI but AFAIK nobody has come up with any problem domain that are both complex enough to demonstrate this behaviour but simple enough to understand.

The problem with this is that you're still searching for a particular problem domain; the AI bait 'n switchers will say it's not thinking once you've solved it (because to them it's not thinking if a machine can do it).

Yeah...

[jotaeleemeese]

I also feel terribly deficient when I compare my time running 100m against the Ferrari of my neghbour.

Re:Yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't feel so deficient if you only race it for about 5 or 10 meters. You're initial acceleration is much better than any cars; you have much less mass to move.

Newsflash for chess newbies...

[jotaeleemeese]

... you can tie a game.... No please, do not thank me.

Chess...

[jotaeleemeese]

... is not an spectator sport.

Well, it is not unless you are an expert and can reach orgasmic heights watching the notation of a given famous game.

Bobby had his chance and blew it

[Pac]

It is common is this kind of discussion for someone to use the "Fischer card". IMHO, being the best involves being able to play for years and continously prove yourself against new challenges. It holds not only for chess but for any human activity. Bobby fails this test: under excessive pressure he broke down and fled the board.

Oh well...

[jotaeleemeese]

... so thick one more skill in favour of machines.

When there is enough software for machines to be good at any skills and draw from that expertise, then what genious? Who is going to care if they use brute force methods to play chess, vacuum clean your carpet, be good pets, or become governors of California?

If something quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck is a fscking eagle, right?

Re:Oh well...

[z00z]

When there is enough software for machines to be good at any skills and draw from that expertise, then what genious? Who is going to care if they use brute force methods to play chess, vacuum clean your carpet, be good pets, or become governors of California?

I certainly won't care. And I mentioned in my post that I believe that those techniques are valid and extremely valuable. My point was that this does NOT make machines "intelligent" as I can probably trick my carpet cleaner into an infinite loop by using super glue on a bit of bread crumbs.

My point, which apparently wasn't as obvious as I intended it to be, is that a computer beating a human at chess means nothing. All it means is that we have enough CPU power to search decision trees faster. The "age of the machines" is still very far away.

Technically, chess can be solved...

[SamSim]

Of course, this debate will be totally irrelevant when somebody eventually solves chess. My money's on a forced win for White.

Obviously, for the computer to win...

[CausticPuppy]

For the computer to win, the next time a New Game is started, Kasparov will need to select the "Nightmare" difficulty level.

the day of the machines has not yet arrived?

[Sgt_Jake]

Didn't Arnold take office yesterday?

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Mysticalfruit]

It could be that in the future the best chess playing computer isn't programmed at all. Instead it's merely told what the rules of the game are and it's then left to figure out on it's own the best strategies to play. Sort of a genetic chess algorithm.

There is a good example of this put into practice by a researcher who was experimenting with neural nets implemented in FPGA chips to create rectifying circuits. He'd setup a random set of interconnections and then through elimination have a program make changes to the chip until it got the desired results. Only keeping the changes that improved the design and discarding the others.

When it was all said and done, the researcher got an rectifying circuit that uses alot less space and gates then it should, and he didn't clearly understand how it worked. Turns out his program had stumbled into a previously unknown characteristic of the interaction of gates in proximity.

Now just imagine if this were done to create a chess computer.

You could possibly get a chess computer that can beat anybody, but nobody would entirely understand how it works on the inside...

Uhh.. .Yeah.

[JMZero]

My point was that while Go is a more difficult game to beat a human at, that that isn't necessarily such an amazing or interesting thing. While we may not see a good computer Go player for a while (well, a computer can already beat me), that hardly makes Go some last bastion of human supremacy. If we're looking broadly at "things that humans do better", Go is one where the difference in skill is actually relatively small and easily overcome.

There's all sorts of problems, like the ones I mentioned, that humans will be better at long after Go champs are getting trashed.

That's all I'm saying...

i like the way you think sir

[phlapjack77]

and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

seriously, i think you bring up a good point. this was a test of a human's chess skills versus a human's (or more than one) programming skills. nothing more. the computer did nothing but make decisions based on what it had been told to do by the humans.

would you like to play a game?

[citizen6350]

At what point does high-level chess played by intellegent and equally skilled people/machines become a game of Tic Tac Toe? Certainly it has a finite set of moves, and while that set is greater than what most humans can consider in its entirety, these Grand Masters seem to be able to. So where does it become a complex version of Tic Tac Toe- where the only way to win is for someone else to mess up?

Learning chess

[mr.fonEtIks]

Slightly off-topic, but relevant.

What is a good way to learn how to play chess?

from the whew dept.

[sharkdba]

don't say that. Judgmentt Day is inevitable.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Fritz lost the third game to Kasparov because there was a heuristic programmed into it not to push pawns that protect the king, while Kasparov had chosen an opening that resulted in a position where Fritz' only hope in the long term was to do exactly that. Fritz had not enough processor power to look that far into the game, and Kasparov knew it.

Thanks for the information on how Fritz was programmed and for reading Kasparov's mind. Handy talents you have there.

The point is to create machines that play chess better than humans do now, so humans can learn from them and get new insights about the game.

You could be right, but once computers can beat the best of the grand masters, I really doubt you'll see many people interested in gaining chess "insights" from a machine (or in playing chess). It's like gaining insights about how cell K7 relates to cell B4 in a spreadsheet.

We know that it's impossible to play perfect chess . . .

Thank you God. I have always asked You for a message, and now You have answered . . . but I was really hoping for the secret to the universe or a really great stock tip.

Yeah, the classical AI bait 'n switch. First it's really intelligent to play a nice game of chess or do complicated mathematical equations, but as soon as computers can do it it's no longer thinking. The solution would be to sit down and define what thinking exactly is, except nobody has ever succeeded in doing just that.

I was fully functional when the term "Artificial Intelligence" was coined. I think I'm well-versed in what it doesn't mean. AI was never intended to indicate that machines could think. If you have sources to indicate otherwise, I would truly appreciate a link for my ongoing education. If you can't explain what thinking is, then you really shouldn't complain if I suggest machines using rule-based programs don't think.

Yeah, but at the same time no one has written a chess program that cannot lose against a human. Humans still play better chess than computers do, even though the difference between them is getting smaller.

So, you reiterate my point: it's a matter of degree and processor power. You seem to be all bristly and frothy about my comment, but what are you trying to say?

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

Thanks for the information on how Fritz was programmed and for reading Kasparov's mind. Handy talents you have there. Thank you for appreciating my talents, although I just read the articles on the site linked to in the writeup.

I really doubt you'll see many people interested in gaining chess "insights" from a machine (or in playing chess). It's like gaining insights about how cell K7 relates to cell B4 in a spreadsheet.

Non sequitur. Why do you think people still get on bikes and have races 2000 miles long, considering they know it's allmost impossible to beat someone on a motorbike? Also, why do runners sometimes put weights around their ankles during training? So why exactly shouldn't people still play chess against eachother, and use computers that always beat them during training?

Thank you God. I have always asked You for a message, and now You have answered . . . but I was really hoping for the secret to the universe or a really great stock tip.

Ha ha, I love sarcasm; except what I'm telling is the truth, and the estimate I give about the possible positions in chess is a conservative one (Shannon estimates 10^43 possible positions in a 40 move match). Now consider you have to see every possible position in chess to find the perfect game(s); you can never store all of those positions in any kind of memory (because you would need the whole universe and then some as memory); and it will take a very long time to compute those positions.

Lets pretend our super-giga-hardware can crunch 10 billion positions per second, that would still leave 10^33 seconds to compute all positions, and since there are only about 31556926 seconds in a year, this would make for about 3.16888 * 10^25 years. Our universe has existed for about 1.4 * 10^10 years...

This is why whe know it's impossible to play perfect chess (and no, Moore's law doesn't help us mere mortals much for generations to come).

If you can't explain what thinking is, then you really shouldn't complain if I suggest machines using rule-based programs don't think.

Sigh. The clinical definition of intelligence used to be the "single, general capacity for conceptualization and problem solving" (Gardner, 1983), except Gardener et al. have since then been working on the theory of multiple intelligences, argueing for the existence of several "relatively autonomous" intelligences. So, a) yes, intelligence implicates thinking and intellectual processes, and b) what kind of thinking and intelligence are you exactly talking about (there are at least 8)?

So, you reiterate my point: it's a matter of degree and processor power. You seem to be all bristly and frothy about my comment, but what are you trying to say?

I'm trying to say that you underestimate humans in what they're willing to endure to get better at their sport; that you grossly underestimate the difficulties of chess and overestimate the processor power available to us; and finally that in humans there is no intelligence without thinking, so why doesn't a machine that shows intelligent behaviour think in some way?

heuristics, libraries, strengths

[igrokme]

Quoting further from the original, I believe he said just that: "A computer needs to be programmed to play to its strength, i.e open positions." Move 5 is also very well discussed in the original article.

It's not a matter of adding heuristics, it's tuning the heuristic (if I may call it that) of the opening library. That library was "tuned" (actually, generated from games played) for grandmasters. Its own opening library therefore played to the strengths of a grandmasters playing against grandmasters. If the move hadn't been in the library, I very much doubt its own program would've put itself in that position -- how would it have chosen that move, without calculating some future advantage for itself? The library gifted that move with human calculated "advantage" which it wouldn't've earned using the computer algorithms.

The other faulty heuristic in this case was the one which caused Fritz to keep his 3 pawns immobile to guard his king. Fritz wasted 20 moves while, yes, he wasn't able to forsee his own doomed defense but his heuristic was also blocking his only feasible offense. There are heuristics but, as the definition tells us, they're imperfect. Some kind of "I'm stuck in a rut, insert random heuristic-breaking noise" or heuristic hierarchy (where useless moves are worse than everything else, including protecting a king which isn't in danger) might be appropriate.

The problem with too transparent a weighting (favoring trades) is introducing predictability. The thing which probably bothered the designers most (besides those two heuristics which lost them the game) was that during the entire game the computer never foresaw any trouble. The "I'm in trouble" clue should've come the instant it exited its library (which should be trusted or it's purposeless) and could neither find any moves it liked or a way to create them. So yeah, maybe adding that constitutes a heuristic.. but it got INTO the trouble because of other, mistuned heuristics.

"Kasparov used anti-computer strategy..." yeah, he's good at finding and using those tough positions. As the Fritz team pointed out, though, it's hard to force a good program playing white into closed positions -- other stragegies are required when playing black.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[smallfries]

The problem with this is that you're still searching for a particular problem domain; the AI bait 'n switchers will say it's not thinking once you've solved it (because to them it's not thinking if a machine can do it).

This is the point that I'm trying to make to you. If you solve the actual problem then you have not created an AI, you've merely produced a specialised tool for a given domain. An actual AI would be a generic solution that could take information about any domain that it had been exposed to before and conjecture how to apply that experience to its current domain. Chess computers don't do this, and most research into improving chess play is not AI research. It is just a search problem.

You mentioned that this could be generalised to make all problem solving just examples of search problems but that isn't true. What if you have a domain that cannot be easily expressed. Consider a program designed to produce art. What is its domain? Can it be searched? Or perhaps a counterpart that is designed to evaluate art and come up with aesthetic criteria to describe it - is it just searching a space?

I still hold that its not really a bait 'n switch. If you could create a program that could learn from experience then it would be an example of an AI. This has not yet been done although we have systems that we say learn (like neural nets) when all that they really do is find minimum solutions to sets of equations.

The actual question of can a machine ever be made to learn is an open one. True, such a machine if created would be an excellent chess player (after practice of course) but that doesn't mean that an excellent chess player is necessarily an example of an AI.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Non sequitur. Why do you think people still get on bikes and have races 2000 miles long, considering they know it's allmost impossible to beat someone on a motorbike?

Poor analogy; a better one would be racing against a robot on a bicycle. While there are mental elements to bicycle racing, it is really a physical sport. Chess is not.

Ha ha, I love sarcasm; except what I'm telling is the truth, and the estimate I give about the possible positions in chess is a conservative one (Shannon estimates . . .

And if one eliminates all losing positions and all positions that emanate from losing positions . . . but I'm not arguing about your numbers - it's your absolutist certitude that amuses me. You aren't the first one to claim that something can't be done and use numbers to back it up. At one time it was known that trains could never travel faster than 60 mph, with all the relevant physics explained.

you can never store all of those positions in any kind of memory (because you would need the whole universe and then some as memory); and it will take a very long time to compute those positions.

Who says that you have to store all possible positions? You're talking about brute-force programs at the lowest possible level. And if it takes a very long time to compute positions, so what? I've programmed brute-force solutions on some problems in the past, and the computer doesn't care one way or the other, although a human opponent might die of old age in the interim during a chess match.

Sigh. . . what kind of thinking and intelligence are you exactly talking about (there are at least 8)?

Yes, I've read the literature, thanks, and that's one author's proposition. I'm saying the main thrust of the unfortunately ill-named AI area is not thinking at all but mimicry of the human decision-making process.

I'm trying to say that you underestimate humans in what they're willing to endure to get better at their sport; that you grossly underestimate the difficulties of chess and overestimate the processor power available to us; and finally that in humans there is no intelligence without thinking, so why doesn't a machine that shows intelligent behaviour think in some way?

I am not the one underestimating humans. Indeed, I'm saying humans will soon demonstrate their ability to write a computer program that will not lose a chess game to any human. That does not make the computer intelligent or thinking. It is still a machine that will always follow the same rote instructions without intuition. It is the difference between mimicry and the real thing.

Al Gore on Futurama said it best...

[conan776]

Not all things can be solved with chess Deep Blue, and one day you will learn

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

it's your absolutist certitude that amuses me. You aren't the first one to claim that something can't be done and use numbers to back it up. At one time it was known that trains could never travel faster than 60 mph, with all the relevant physics explained.

If you're not confortable with numbers like 10^43 and can't understand that those numbers are incomputable even if we had hardware a hunderd billion times as fast as the hardware available now, that's not my problem; you just don't have the right perspective to appreciate the problem.

And if it takes a very long time to compute positions, so what?

What? Are you serious? 31688800000000000000000000 years? You just haven't got a notion about big numbers, do you?

That does not make the computer intelligent or thinking. It is still a machine that will always follow the same rote instructions without intuition. It is the difference between mimicry and the real thing.

Aha, finally the big word is out. To you, even if a machine "mimics" intelligent behaviour perfectly, it's still a machine, so it can't be intelligent. Do you think human intuition is something special in that it is not determined by rules / laws of nature? What do you think is it that makes the processing in the brain so special a computer can't do it?

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

What? Are you serious? 31688800000000000000000000 years? You just haven't got a notion about big numbers, do you?

You just have a reading comprehension problem, don't you. I don't believe your pessimistic predictions will stand the test of time, nor do I really care how big your numbers are. There are only a few humans left who can beat the current chess-playing programs. It seems apparent that it won't take much improvement in those programs to eliminate humans from contention.

Aha, finally the big word is out. To you, even if a machine "mimics" intelligent behaviour perfectly, it's still a machine, so it can't be intelligent. Do you think human intuition is something special in that it is not determined by rules / laws of nature? What do you think is it that makes the processing in the brain so special a computer can't do it?

A bullsnake mimics a rattlesnake, but it's still a bullsnake. The cargo cult could not build an airplane, but they could mimic one well enough to lure victims. If you don't understand how something works, you can not duplicate it, although you can produce something that resembles it. Listen up. I did not say there would never be a thinking or intelligent machine. I don't have that absolutist certitude. I said that just because humans can't beat a chess program, it doesn't mean the machine can think.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

You just have a reading comprehension problem, don't you. I don't believe your pessimistic predictions will stand the test of time, nor do I really care how big your numbers are.

Look, it's not my numbers, my part is making an optimistic assumption of hardware capable of computing 10 billion positions per second. With these conservative estimates and optimistic assumptions it's still impossible.

Remember we're talking about playing perfect games, not just being better than the best human. To find a perfect game, you can't just ignore large parts of the search tree and only look a few moves ahead like an ordinary chess program does, you'll have to do an extensive search of each and every move possible before you play your first move, because there can be ways to win playing white or draw playing black which don't look very promising in the beginning.

If you don't understand how something works, you can not duplicate it, although you can produce something that resembles it.

That is besides the point. We don't want to mimic the brain or its biological processes pre ce, we want to duplicate its product, intelligence; we don't have to care about how the human brain produces intelligence (even though it could prove a good starting point).

Modern psychiatry and psychology distinguishes various types of intelligence in humans, so it's fair to try and duplicate only one of those (autonomous) intelligences. It is very well possible to write a program that is capable of learning from its mistakes in playing games (the world champion in checkers is such a program), and it is also possible to write a program that is capable of autonomously learning the rules of various (board) games. If we combined those two concepts, we would have something that duplicates "game intelligence" in humans quite well (except for being awfully slow). Would this be a thinking machine by your standards?

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Look, it's not my numbers, my part is making an optimistic assumption of hardware capable of computing 10 billion positions per second. With these conservative estimates and optimistic assumptions it's still impossible.

They are your numbers since you are using them to bolster your argument. I believe your numbers are irrelevant since I don't believe there is any need to store all possible positions.

Remember we're talking about playing perfect games . . .

Whoa, Lone Ranger, who is this "we"? You are the one going on and on about perfect games. I'm talking about programs that are *good enough*, and we are nearly there.

. . . we don't have to care about how the human brain produces intelligence (even though it could prove a good starting point).

I thought we were arguing about thinking machines, but I could be wrong. The point seems to change constantly.

If we combined those two concepts, we would have something that duplicates "game intelligence" in humans quite well (except for being awfully slow). Would this be a thinking machine by your standards?

ANNs have been capable of producing generalized responses from previous *experience* for years, and that has been termed "learning" by some. To answer your loaded question, a smarter person than I suggested that thinking was the arbitration that happened between multiple types of intelligence, so given your conditions, I'd say the machine was intelligent. Since there was only one type of intelligence, it would not be a thinking machine. My preferred answer is that a thinking machine, like pornography, is very difficult to define. I'll know it when I see it.

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

They are your numbers since you are using them to bolster your argument. I believe your numbers are irrelevant since I don't believe there is any need to store all possible positions.

Sigh. You don't need to store all positions, you need to compute them all. Since these computations take more than 10 billion times as long as the universe has existed, it would be very practical to store those positions so you don't have to compute them all over again (during your next move).

The number I give (which is Shannon's estimate, not mine) is widely considered to be the best estimate. My calculations are valid, so if you can't accept them that is your problem, not mine. If you want to attack my estimate, make a better one using published numbers, don't just bullshit around because I don't buy that.

Whoa, Lone Ranger, who is this "we"? You are the one going on and on about perfect games. I'm talking about programs that are *good enough*, and we are nearly there.

You don't believe it's impossible to play perfect chess, read back your own comments (it's the one where you get religious).

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Sigh. You don't need to store all positions, you need to compute them all. Since these computations take more than 10 billion times as long as the universe has existed, it would be very practical to store those positions so you don't have to compute them all over again (during your next move).

Are you having a nice argument with yourself? You don't need to store all positions, you just need to store them so you don't have to compute them again every move?

If you want to attack my estimate, make a better one using published numbers, don't just bullshit around because I don't buy that.

Look, you are the one talking about the need to compute and store every possible position. From the start, my position has been that your method is not necessary, not that your numbers are incorrect for someone who is deranged enough to try to implement your method. To restate, yet again, it will take only an incremental improvement in current chess programs before humans can no longer beat them.

You don't believe it's impossible to play perfect chess, read back your own comments (it's the one where you get religious).

You don't understand sarcasm. It was your pontificating statement that "We know that it's impossible . . ." that drew my response. I don't know any such thing, so don't include me. I don't know that it is impossible to build an expert system that could play a perfect game. If that led you to believe I was arguing about "perfect" chess, I apologize. As I stated, in the same post, I did not understand what your disjointed complaint was. My point all along has been that just because a computer program does not lose to humans, it does not mean the machine can think, and I'm tired of repeating it. (And someone who styles himself as the Grand Poobah shouldn't complain about people getting religious. :)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

To restate, yet again, it will take only an incremental improvement in current chess programs before humans can no longer beat them.

As a chess player I can assure you that in general chess players are not impressed when a computer beats them, we would be impressed if a computer played perfect chess or at least wouldn't make obvious strategical mistakes because of horizon effects. Computers are already better at tactics than even the best humans, but they absolutely suck at (long term) strategy; they lack a plan to stick to throughout a game.

So even if computers beat us 99.99% of the time because they can draw us into complex tactical positions; it's mostly the 0.01% that counts, because those are the highly strategical games that hint at perfect chess. (It might very well be that some of those tactical games are perfect too, there is just no way to prove it and these complex tactical victories are not obviously unavoidable.)

If that led you to believe I was arguing about "perfect" chess, I apologize. As I stated, in the same post, I did not understand what your disjointed complaint was.

A perfect game in chess is when you lead your opponent to defeat without ever giving him any chance of escape in the least number of moves possible. I think that's what the confusion is about: in chess "perfect" is defined as absolute perfection, not just being better then everybody/everything else.

As to my disjointed complaint, I'm in the Turing & Kurzweil camp, I believe computers do think (in some very limited way); but that's a philosophical debate, and if we can't have consensus on the definition of "thinking" the debate becomes meaningless.

(And someone who styles himself as the Grand Poobah shouldn't complain about people getting religious. :)

Hey, I'm not complaining, I'm just trying not to let my discordian side take over (but I'm still happy about the conversation getting milder ;)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

So even if computers beat us 99.99% of the time because they can draw us into complex tactical positions; it's mostly the 0.01% that counts, because those are the highly strategical games that hint at perfect chess.

Back to one of my earlier points: How many people will be willing to play 10,000 ("99.99%" *ahem* your numbers) games against a computer to win one (and how many years would it take to play them)? As a fair but untalented chess player, I can say not many. As I pointed out in the OP, when I could no longer beat Chessmaster on the highest level, I devoted my time to other interests.

A perfect game in chess is when you lead your opponent to defeat without ever giving him any chance of escape in the least number of moves possible. I think that's what the confusion is about: in chess "perfect" is defined as absolute perfection, not just being better then everybody/everything else.

Yet again, that is not relevant to the comment I posted. Humans (obviously) do not play "perfect" chess, so computer programs do not need to do so either in order to prevent humans from winning. An expert system *taught* (I'm using the term loosely) from the best games of the best players would play like the best masters without the human lapses. It would be like putting a dictionary program in a spelling bee, and that, I believe, is where we are headed.

I believe computers do think (in some very limited way); but that's a philosophical debate, and if we can't have consensus on the definition of "thinking" the debate becomes meaningless.

What constitutes "thinking" has been an ongoing philosophical debate for millennia. I hardly expect to reach consensus in a Slashdot thread. I write programs because it's my occupation and avocation. Some are simple, and some are sophisticated, but I don't have the hubris to believe I've caused any machine to think.

I'm not complaining, I'm just trying not to let my discordian side take over . . .

A dogmatic discordian. Now there's a mind-bender. :)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

As a fair but untalented chess player, I can say not many.

And as a chess player that really played competition and not just recreatively, I can say a lot. There are a lot of people who practice chess every day and study it two hours a day or more.

I can understand your point (though I don't agree completely) that it's not a lot of fun to recreatively play chess against a much stronger opponent. But if you play chess competatively and want to improve your tactics, there is nothing like playing a lot of games against a strong computer. Honestly.

Yet again, that is not relevant to the comment I posted. Humans (obviously) do not play "perfect" chess, so computer programs do not need to do so either in order to prevent humans from winning.

You just don't seem to get the relevance of perfect chess:

Humans are striving for perfect chess, and they have improved a lot over the centuries. It's not as if the level of chess playing hasn't improved over the ages.

As long as an opponent doesn't play perfect chess, he's beatable. Even future computers will be beaten by humans (once in a while) as long as they don't play perfect games.

An expert system *taught* (I'm using the term loosely) from the best games of the best players would play like the best masters without the human lapses.

Sigh. An expert system is a Turing type B program. They just don't work for chess because of the complexity involved. Every strong playing chess program we know is type A (brute force) based.

It would be like putting a dictionary program in a spelling bee, and that, I believe, is where we are headed.

I've been trying to tell you for days now that it won't be like that. It's entirely possible to spell perfectly, but it's impossible to play chess perfectly . See the difference?

I write programs because it's my occupation and avocation. Some are simple, and some are sophisticated, but I don't have the hubris to believe I've caused any machine to think.

Try this: mechanical machines reduce the manual labour people have to put up with. Because they reduce our physical workload, we say they do physical work. What kind of human labour do information machines (computers) reduce? Cognitive (mental) labour, IOW thinking. So why isn't it fair to say that computers do actually think, when they reduce the human cognitive workload?

A dogmatic discordian. Now there's a mind-bender. :)

Hehe, I'm not dogmatic at all. Theoretical limits are not dogmas :)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

But if you play chess competatively and want to improve your tactics, there is nothing like playing a lot of games against a strong computer. Honestly.

I'll have to take your word for that. It seems to me that someone who would go 1 in 10,000 with a computer is a masochist, but to each his own.

Even future computers will be beaten by humans (once in a while) as long as they don't play perfect games.

So you say. As long as computers are only just as good as the best human, no human could win. You are correct, as I've stated from the beginning, I don't see the relevance. If some human became capable of playing "perfect" chess, then it would be relevant. Since you continue to point out the incredible complexity of accomplishing this feat, it would seem unlikely that humans will attain it unaided.

They just don't work for chess because of the complexity involved. Every strong playing chess program we know is type A (brute force) based.

I would think that someone who believes computers can think would see the waste in brute force solutions and be able to imagine the future of expert systems. There is little new to learn in brute force attacks, aside from polishing some algorithms perhaps. As computers become ever faster, it becomes feasible to attack more problems (like encryption) with brute force, but not the *human* type problems.

So why isn't it fair to say that computers do actually think, when they reduce the human cognitive workload?

In earlier years, I built a calculator and a computer from scratch using wire-wrap, so I can attest that a calculator is nothing more than an electronic abacus or slide rule, and a computer is nothing more than a fancy calculator. An abacus reduces "human cognitive workload". Does it think? A slide rule is even better since you can do quick approximations that you can't do on a calculator or even a computer. Does it think? I don't believe it does, even though it reduces my cognitive workload.

I'm not dogmatic at all. Theoretical limits are not dogmas :)

There is more than one definition of "dogmatic". :)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

As long as computers are only just as good as the best human, no human could win. You are correct, as I've stated from the beginning, I don't see the relevance.

Ok, I'll try to explain it one more time. In chess (like in most sports) there is absolutely no guarantee that the better player (the higher ranking player) will always win. Even worse, you can't even prove that looking ahead further in the search tree produces better moves (because of horizon effects, the move you think is good might prove very bad if you look ahead one move further, ad nauseam). The only way of being absolutely unbeatable is to play perfect chess, IOW to exhaust the search tree completely.

I would think that someone who believes computers can think would see the waste in brute force solutions and be able to imagine the future of expert systems.

I don't see it as waste, in fact I think some of the thinking we humans do is of brute-force type, we just don't normally realize it because they are subconcious processes. The problem with rule-based systems is emergent properties; if you combine some individually simple rules, complex situations can arrise. That's why expert systems don't work for problems like chess: it's like feeding a general with knowledge of famous battles of the past and expecting him to win every future battle.

In earlier years, I built a calculator and a computer from scratch using wire-wrap, so I can attest that a calculator is nothing more than an electronic abacus or slide rule, and a computer is nothing more than a fancy calculator.

Yes, but very similarly, if you disect/study a living human brain you will only find braincells but no thought. If a brain is only neurons, how can it think? My answer: intelligence is an emergent property (also).

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[vsprintf]

Ok, I'll try to explain it one more time. In chess (like in most sports) there is absolutely no guarantee that the better player (the higher ranking player) will always win.

That's a silly comparison. In most sports, the physical part is paramount, and the mental part is secondary. Chess is almost entirely mental; the only physical aspect is not dozing off or dying from phlebitis before the game is over.

The only way of being absolutely unbeatable is to play perfect chess . . .

Absolutes again. You don't have to be absolutely unbeatable to win/draw, you just have to be as good as your opponent, play the same game, and not make any mistakes.

I don't see it as waste, in fact I think some of the thinking we humans do is of brute-force type, we just don't normally realize it because they are subconcious processes.

Some? Crossword puzzles maybe. When I run into problems, I usually try to remember similar situations and the various outcomes (or at least I think I do). If humans relied on brute-force solutions to play chess, the computers would already be the masters.

That's why expert systems don't work for problems like chess: it's like feeding a general with knowledge of famous battles of the past and expecting him to win every future battle.

I don't like that comparison either. The rules of warfare are myriad and changeable, and the possible environments nearly infinite. The rules of chess are fixed and the battlefield unchangeable. Expert systems are evolving and beginning to live up to some of the decades-old AI hype.

Yes, but very similarly, if you disect/study a living human brain you will only find braincells but no thought.

If you dissect a living human brain, I will have you arrested for murder. Examination of a living brain does show unexplained activity apparently related to "thinking". But all that still does not address your claim that anything that reduces a human's cognitive workload is capable of thinking.

Well, I'm sure we've broken my previous record for ongoing arguments on Slashdot, and it seems we've agreed to disagree. I'd wish you a happy Thanksgiving, but your spelling of "labour" suggests you're a Brit, and the holiday is only for us colonists. :)

Re:Proving again it is not the time of the machine

[Zan Zu from Eridu]

In most sports, the physical part is paramount, and the mental part is secondary. Chess is almost entirely mental; the only physical aspect is not dozing off or dying from phlebitis before the game is over.

Hehe. Of course chess is mental, but that doesn't take away that just as you can blunder by fumbling a ball in baseball, you can blunder by fumbling a position in chess. There are hundreds of examples of (grand)masters losing a game to a much lower ranking opponent. In chess there is the added stress of not only playing against an opponent but playing against a clock also, and it's the mental stress that's mostly responsible for the mistakes you make, not only in chess but in a wide range of physical sports also.

Some? Crossword puzzles maybe. When I run into problems, I usually try to remember similar situations and the various outcomes (or at least I think I do).

That would be a concious process, but the crosswords you mention is perhaps (interestingly) related to where I mostly detect these unconcious processes in myself, namely when I'm trying to remember words (in a foreign language) and catch myself mumbling things like: malag maleg malig ahh, it's malignant. I'm unconciously doing a brute force on the phonemes of a word until it "sounds" (feels) right. There are other examples, but I've seen other people do this too, so maybe you're familliar with it also.

The rules of warfare are myriad and changeable, and the possible environments nearly infinite. The rules of chess are fixed and the battlefield unchangeable.

Agreed, but we've already discussed the number of possible positions in a normal game of chess. Isn't it fair to call these a myrad of possibilities also? ;)

But all that still does not address your claim that anything that reduces a human's cognitive workload is capable of thinking.

Let's simply define thinking as excercizing your intelligence(s), IOW making use of your abilities to abstract, solve problems, etc. Any machine that reduces the need for a human to perform these tasks while the abstract models are still being produced and/or the problems are still being solved, must be performing (part of) these tasks for the human; because performing these tasks is defined as thinking, the machine must be thinking to a certain extent.

Well, I'm sure we've broken my previous record for ongoing arguments on Slashdot, and it seems we've agreed to disagree. I'd wish you a happy Thanksgiving, but your spelling of "labour" suggests you're a Brit, and the holiday is only for us colonists. :)

I'm much better at starting discussions than at ending them, and even though I tried to keep this last post short, look what happened. I'm not a Brit but a Dutchie by the way; it was them Brits who gave us trouble in Nieuw Amsterdam and rebaptized it to New York, so don't get me started about them :) Pleasant holidays.