Slashdot Mirror
Computers Win at Man vs Machine Championship
Fanfan writes "Chessbase is reporting that the man vs. machine championship ended badly for the humans : The event ended in a depressing 3.5:8.5 loss by the humans to the computers. Both Fritz and Hydra scored a remarkable 3.5 points out of four games, while an out-of-form Junior ended up with 1.5 points after the only computer loss in this tournament (to 14-year-old Sergey Karjakin)."
The only computer loss in this tournament, to a 14 year old kid... cheers to him!
Why is that depressing? I would have said stunning -- and then done a little dance to show how undepressing I find this progress.
Obligatory Go post.
Seriously, chess or computers is a brute-force exercise in going through all the possible permutations on the chessboard. If only life was so simple and limited.
Go is about constant evaluation, pattern recognition, and balance and computers can't touch it.
What can chess software do beyond playing chess? Everything is mapped out ahead of time. The pieces abilities are always known and their movement and purpose is predetermined.
What is that stone for? Attack, defense, infrastructure? All three? Is it part of group A or group B? Depends on how play goes.
A computer that can analyze Go can analyze life. There are too many factors interacting simultaneously to brute-force so you must actually move forward with AI. Chess is a dead end.
The computers may have won, but from the pictures, it looks like the humans had more fun. It will be a while before they make a computer that's better than we are at that (though it might be soon when a computer learns to post better jokes on slashdot than the typical human).
Does it diminish humans in any way that they can now be beaten at chess by a computer, especially by a computer that can do almost nothing else? If you've defined your life around chess, it might be depressing, but this just shows that it's important to be well-rounded. But even then, chess is a game. It is supposed to be fun to play. Does it become less fun now that a computer can play the game better than you, better than the best in the world? Why should it?
I might find it depressing if computers were eventually able to write more interesting poetry than a human, or paint better pictures, or do something else creative. But, perhaps not even then. It wouldn't diminish the quality of a human's art if a computer could do it better -- it simply means that there's more beautiful art!
I think this is a triumph for humanity, in its ability to create chess-playing-computers, not a tragedy for humanity because they're no longer better than computers at some random thing.
Puny humans, taste defeat at the hands of our version of your Commodore 64!
These computers were all designed programmed by teams of people. The play of the computer is a credit to how much further we have advanced in electronics and computing. The shock should be when somebody actually manages to beat the computer!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Death, taxes, and Go mentioned in every slashdot article on chess.
With the cyberthalamus, the singularity will happen.
I wouldn't call this depressing at all. After all, humans can still manage the task of playing chess, speaking any different number of languages, walking (controlling thousands upon thoudands of muscular fibers simultaneously), observing and comprehending the world around us, _designing_ those computers that beat us, and the myriad of other miracles that we perform on an hourly basis. I'd say, if anything, we should be patting these puny little computers on the head, condescendingly congratulating them on their miniscule achievment.
-Zeecog
Is anyone else amazed that the winner, Fritz 8, was running on a mere 1.7GHZ laptop???
moo
If the computers didn't design the computer programs playing the games, then I'd say either way is a win for humans.
What the article failed to mention is that the humans all had serious smack addictions.
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Plus, we can still win at bashing the computers with a hammer.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
(Murray) Well, I... I do have a question. How many people were voting for Deep Blue?
And how many people were voting for Kasparov? Ah.....humanity has hope - still, I suppose.
(Jian) How many people are like actually disappointed that the human lost.
No no, disappointed I mean. Duh! No, Because like I just don't get it, you know? I mean,
you know? What's the fucking big deal, you know? It's a machine, right? I don't know.
I made the point in Albany the other day which apparently lost on all the Albanians.
(Murray) I didn't get it either.
(Dave) That's not all that was lost on the Albanians.
(Jian) There still behind the times.
(Dave) There's a lot of foreign aid going on there.
(Murray) Your point was if there's a fire, Deep Blue wouldn't run out of the room.
(Jian) Exactly!
(Mike) Couldn't run out of the room.
(Jian) That's exactly my point. If an attractive person walks into the room, a person that would
be attractive to Deep Blue, it can't do anything about it. That's my point.
Kasparov can approach the person.
(Murray) The attractive person.
(Jian) No! Here's my point. My point is a calculator. That's my point. Right?
(Murray) No, let's get back the fire.
(Jian) No, hang on. No, no, the calc...forget the fire, because apparently it's, you know,
I'm talking on a different level.
(Murray) I - Clearly!
(Jian) Here's the thing. Here's the thing. A calculator, right, a common everyday calculator.
(Murray) I'm with you.
(Jian) A calculator will, you know, it...let's say, let's play the adding game, right? Who can
add faster a calculator or a woman or man? A calculator can, right? So what's the big deal?
We know that there are instruments... we know that there are are machines...
we know that there are computers, etcetera.
that can do things that. It's just because the the thing won at chess, right?
I don't understand what the big deal is.
(Murray) Your point is if you light a match near your calculator, it's not going to scurry away.
It's all relative.
(Jian) No, my point is...My point is if there's a calculator. My point is... oh alright, okay,
I'll bring it back to the fire for you, because I know you're obsessed.
If there's a fire in my living room, where me and my calculator are sitting, I can escape the fire.
(Dave)Yeah, but...
(Jian) But my calculator can't.
(Murray) Is there a logic course here that one of us can enroll in?
(Jian) Well, I think, I think they know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the fact that the machine is programmed to only do one thing.
It can't do anything else. The fire was just one example. Pick anything, anything.
(Mike) Locusts.
(Murray) A flood. How about a flood? Can he escape a flood?
(Jian, laughing) Kasparov can....
(Mike) A plague of frogs.
(Jian) No, say there's an, say there's an earthquake. Right.
(Murray) Now, there's a good one.
(Jian) There's an earthquake doen the middle of the room, the chess room. Kasparov can get up and move. Deep Blue can't.
(Murray) It falls into the chasm.
(Jian) That's my point.
(Dave) But if they built Deep Blue in a door frame then there's no room for Kasparov to stand...
to fight the earthquake. Then they're doubly screwed.
(Jian) See...see...they'd have to program Deep Blue to escape the fire. That's my thing.
(Murray) But they can do that in a couple of years.
(Mike) You know we were talking about... we were talking about disaster movies.
This would be the perfect disaster movie. Just have an endless succession
of these scenes where Deep Blue is just sitting there. "It's the locusts" or whatever and Kasparov is just running his little
piggy legs out of the room. "I'm free again, you fucker."
It won't get scary until computers can code better than people...
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.