Neural Network Chess Computer Abandons Brute Force For "Human" Approach

An anonymous reader writes: A new chess AI utilizes a neural network to approach the millions of possible moves in the game without just throwing compute cycles at the problem the way that most chess engines have done since Von Neumann. 'Giraffe' returns to the practical problems which defeated chess researchers who tried to create less 'systematic' opponents in the mid-1990s, and came up against the (still present) issues of latency and branch resolution in search. Invented by an MSc student at Imperial College London, Giraffe taught itself chess and reached FIDE International Master level on a modern mainstream PC within three days.

Comments

now it needs to play other computers to impress me

[ruebarb]

the big Computer tournaments are run by TCEC at chessdom.com - there it would be paired against other engines, of whom Komodo and Stockfish have been pretty much dominating every year since season 2 -

truth is, all computer chess is computer vs. computer nowadays - the losses come from different evaluations of positions - then the programmers try to correct it, etc - but since all engines are running the same hardware with resources, the best performers should win -

you can follow Season 8 (round 1b right now) here

http://tcec.chessdom.com/live....

Re:Gotta love neural networks!

[slew]

Well, yes, that kind of is the issue. The computation chess masters make, the actual thoughts, could be handled on a 1950 computer no problem.

The question is how. It isn't brute force, though they do delve into plies as desired. The real trick is knowing which handful to explore mentally. And if it were just pattern matching against known games, it would be done by computer already that way, too.

What?

FTFY... (although perhaps a few players I know might be thinking about it the original way it was written)