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Computer Defeats Human At Japanese Chess
Calopteryx writes "A computer has beaten a human at shogi, otherwise known as Japanese chess, for the first time. As New Scientist reports, computers have beaten humans at western chess before, but that game is relatively simple, with only about 10^123 possible games existing that can be played out. Shogi is a *bit* more complex, offering about 10^224 possible games."
"First dan" or shodan is roughly the level of "starting to get serious" or freshman-professional. This goes for karate, shogi, igo (go), language, and pretty much the grading scheme in all other Japanese arts and skills including ikebana and shodo calligraphy. Westerners often think the black belt in karate is the pinnacle, when indeed your first black belt is just the beginning of a lifelong journey. Most schools go to 9-dan (kyuudan) and have an honorary 10-dan or 11-dan ranking for the highest practitioner in the world. Everything below 1-dan is just weeding out the hobbyists and dilettantes.
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soooo irritating whenever a go player brings this up.
Go only wins through brute force.
go is 19x19
shogi is 9x9
chess is 8x8
If a game like shogi or chess was extended to 19x19 it would be vastly harder for a computer.
Computers playing Go on 9x9 have beaten 9th dan.
And if it was 8x8 it would be even easier.
What makes Go hard isn't anything particularly neat about the game.
Is just a boring brute force exercise.
I spent a summer once working for a professor who has spent his life trying to develop an AI for Go!
In particular I was compressing read-only hash tables of end states. He was basing his approach on the work of someone who had developed AI for checkers but I think it's obvious that Go is a little bit bigger problem.
(To be specific: http://lie.math.brocku.ca/twolf/home/publications.html#3)
Actually, I used to routinely thrash the top level in typical Checkers programs. Shogi is interesting because if you can hold your own enough to start capturing pieces, you can become a huge nuisance. Every piece you capture can be played back on the board on your side on any turn; this makes Shogi a little complicated for a computer, since suddenly you have no checkmate on the board but there's 10 ways I can play a Horse or Rook and trap you in a checkmate.
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11-dan ranking for the highest practitioner in the world.
+11 Funny
Set your phasers on "funky"!
If you bother to read the article:
"IBM say they have improved artificial intelligence enough that Watson will be able to challenge Jeopardy champions, and they'll put their boast to the test soon, says The New York Times. "
Do you realize what this means? Ken Jennings versus robots. They could make an entire new show out of this and I'd watch it religiously.
You're bored by the relatively fast advance of computer intelligence? Humans have for the first time in recorded history lost their title of "Best at Shogi" to computers (and orangutangs have presumably been bumped down to 3rd). That may not have any real-world significance, but in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too long ago that computers couldn't beat us at math.
You're on a forum with a focus on computers, and you say that's boring? Jesus, what WOULD interest you? If it ran linux using a beowulf cluster? Simpsons quotes?
Well fine, I for one welcome our new shogi-playing computer overlords.
The actual accomplishment, not specifically stated until the FOURTH paragraph of the New Scientist article with the same terrible headline, is that it's the first time a computer has beaten a professional human player; in this case, Ichiyo Shimizu, the female shogi champion.
its totally winnable. you just have to get three in a row! (do you not even know the rules!?) :)
Are you referring to Deep Blue? While it is true that Deep Blue was relatively weak, and Kasparov lost because of psychological errors, he later played against Fritz, which is a much more powerful chess engine, in a more fair match. Also we now have Rybka, which was created by a team of programming grandmasters, and has a rating several hundred points above the highest human (although no one has ever shelled out the cash necessary to get it to play against the world champion, it would likely win).
Qxe4