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Hydra vs. Shredder
azaris writes "The powerful computer chess engine Hydra, running on a sixteen-way Linux cluster, is taking on the many times world champion engine Shredder in a match between the two chess super computers in Abu Dhabi, according to ChessBase.com. So far, Hydra is leading by two clear victories." S!: ChessBase also points to the announcement of a "64,000 square meter International Chess City" in Dubai, planned to cost US $2.6 billion, which "will feature 32 buildings designed to mirror the image of a traditional black and white game board."
It doesn't have to be 60 million different chess players. Just like tourists are counted again if they return, the numbers don't mean they are unique. redundancy rules... like when McDonalds says "billions served".
Abu Dabi gets a multi billion dollar tacky las vegas style exhibit while millions in Sudan and Africa starve, imagine how many water pipes and medical supplies you could buy for 2.3 billion large
oh well i guess we can dream and play chess while others worry about being pawns in someone elses game
So the square will be 8 kilometers on one side? 4.8 miles? I hope a lot of it is courtyard between the buildings.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The "many times world champion engine" Shredder, is not the current world champion engine. That would be Junior, which is programmed by Israeli Jews. You wouldn't want them in Abu Dhabi, would you?
>We'll just pit computers against one another, and people won't even play anymore.
Why?
Humans still compete with each other at lifting weights, moving fast, and throwing things. Machines have long since outclassed us at those activities but we still relish the challenge.
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has just unveiled a plan to build a new "chess city" in the Emirate of Dubai. It's a US $2.6 billion project that is expected to play host to (hold on to your hats) 60 million amateur and professional chess followers annually.
This would be a monumental example of the one of the reasons (brutal repression being another) why the present leadership in Arab countries is so detested by their own Muslim populations and others of that faith around the world. Chess is considered undesirable in Islam, and many consider it Haraam (forbidden under Islamic law). The latter is the view held by the most respected Islamic scholars such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
While I don't condone this aspect of Islam, in the same way I don't condone the Pope's view on condoms, one can't fail to recognise what a massive insult this is to their religion. If you don't, imagine if the American government allowed a $2.6 billion mosque complex to be constructed in the "bible belt", to be visited by 60 million Muslims each year. If that analogy does not suffice, imagine instead the reaction to a 64,000 square meter family-planning/abortion centre to cater for 60 million women from around the world, right in the middle of the Protestant heartland.
The best carbon chess players are still about equal with the best silicon chess players, and they sure as hell are not doing that with silicon-type logic (evaluating billions of nodes in a search tree). That implies to me that there's a hell of a lot of intuition, for want of a better word, in chess.
Wow I totally agree, this is stupid. We all know 2.6 Billion dollars can end world hunger, the conflict in the middle east AND global warming. Unfortunately before no one has EVER had this kind of money to spend, so now that we have a chance we should put this money into solving those problems right away!
Do you realize how many billions of dollars are spent daily on stuff much MUCH less profitable and important than an international chess city? Do you realize 2.6 billion dollars isn't all that much money?
i would say that an AI that can beat a human for their first year is pretty damned good.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
And just how much are the yankee imperialist bastards spending for their war on brown people? Couldn't they cure aids or develop Virtual Reality projects so that they can fuck with everyone else's self determination in a virtual world without making enemies of everyone in the real world?