Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Kasparov Draws Game 4 and Match Against X3D Fritz

Posted by michael on from the whew dept.

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."

7 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Negative Computer Bias by pez · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Negative Computer Bias by Le+Marteau · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
    2. Re:Negative Computer Bias by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

      --
      Physicists get Hadrons!
  2. day of the machines by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.
  3. Re:Someone explain this by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Special. by An+Onerous+Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --

    You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!

  5. Re:This sort of thing winds me up by YouHaveSnail · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?