Brain vs. Computer: Place Your Bets 325
dev_null_ziggy writes: "CNN reports that the current chess guru is going up against a supercomputer, amusingly titled 'Deep Fritz.' The match is scheduled for October, and the current champion, Vladimir Kramnik, stands to win $1 Million dollars if he wins. Of course, since he'll be snagging $800k for a draw, and $600k for a loss ... I'll give two to one odds on the machine."
Re:Humans has to win, right ? (Score:2, Insightful)
We're the result of an evolution, I think it's just a matter of time, when humans will create something (will it still be called a computer?) which is more "intelligent".
Yeah, now brain is better than processor, you say "because brain can adapt to new situations", I agree with that, it seems also obvious, but obvious NOW.
Our will / mind is just the result of our life experience, our memory of it (situation-feeling), and some physical connections in the brain (brain is a physical thing, right?) and I think one day we will create something with an own will and mind, and maybe we won't even realize it because if this thing can think, it's going to realize that it should stay hidden to survive and wait till it is powerfull enought.
hmmmm.. and then the human creature won't be at the top of evolution anymore, but the machine.
-Alain-
Re:Deep Blue 2? (Score:2, Insightful)
You are making a comparison between brute force computation and heuristics/algorithmic analysis.. What you describe can't happen.
In chess, certain segments of the game are fairly stylized. Take for example, openings, which have been researched, analyzed and can generally be committed to memory. Take also end games, which are more or less set pieces where a result can be determined. Most chess playing computers actually store only the openings, and end game positions. To store every possible move is impossible. This is where the algorithmic analysis/heuristics/AI capability comes in. Using some algorithm like alpha-beta minimax, a computer operates the same way we do, by pruning the decision tree until an optimal move can be found.
The advantage for humans is that there are some moves and positions that we can reject automatically, through experience. The advantage for the computer is that even though it cannot reject such obviously flawed moves without consideration, it can actually compute (and consider) more branches of the decision tree than humans (faster calculations)..
A computer will eventually dominate a human player in Chess. But maybe not just yet..
Re:Humans has to win, right ? (Score:4, Insightful)
A game is a draw is there have been no pawn moves and no captures for 50 moves each (except in special conditions). As pawns can only move forward there is a finite number of moves until all pawns must reach the eighth rank, at which point the game must end in fifty moves, or a piece must be taken. Then the maximum length of the game is (maximum number of pawn moves until last pawn reaches eighth rank * 50) + (50 * number of non-kings after last pawn is promoted).
The special condition mentioned above is where the game can go beyond 50 moves if there is known to be a forced win - King, Rook, and Bishop vs King and Two Knights can go on for 223 moves between captures.
Another way of looking at it is that there are only a finite number of legal chess positions. If any of these appear three times in one game then it is a draw (if you slightly generalise position to include potential moves from that position - pieces can be in the same position of the chess board but have different legal moves: en passant and castling are the two exmaples where this happens).
The really amazing thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
2 to 1 Odds? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
And in the end its worth remembering that for now, at least, machines are still just intermediaries. Chess is not a strong AI problem, although playing like a human (as opposed to as well as/better than a human) might be. Kasparov wasn't just going against a machine, he was going against decades of IBM technological advancement, half a dozen engineers and an International Grandmaster (Joel Benjamin, part of the IBM development team). All told I think he did pretty well. But I'd bet in this match the CPU gets its clock cleaned.
In a manner of speaking, I suppose... (Score:3, Insightful)
As it is, I think that what I have described is, roughly, how home PC chess programs work. Of course there has been some tweaking and refining, and probably a hell of a lot of precalculation of common scenarios on the home PC products - so that it's nice and fast and doesn't need a Cray. I'm not sure how Deep Fritz works, but I'm fairly certain it does something similar on some level (Hence the name?).
The advantage that computers tend to have over people in this kind of thing should be pretty obvious: most people can't accuratly remember that much stuff! Naturally, human creativity makes a big difference, as does talent and experience, but the computer being able to consider so many options so quickly and accurately makes up for a lot, and should allow it to surpass it's creators fairly easily (unless it's creators are Grand Masters!).
Not necessarily (includes explanation)... (Score:2, Insightful)
In many cases this is augmented by a database of opening sequences, which is used to give the computer a head start, so to speak.
The computer algorithm works out, for example, what is likely to happen 5 or 6 moves from now if it should move a piece to a certain place. It runs through all possible moves, looking at each one and the likely consequences of it, before deciding exactly what move to execute.
No human can possibly consider anything like the number of moves a computer can, but a truly excellent player stands a chance because look ahead methods are far from flawless.
The Limits of Computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Computer chess suffers many limitations that human beings do not. These limits are being extended, but they still exist and the human being in this match should not be counted out.
Many people think that since IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov that the debate has been settled that computers are better than people. However, there where some aspects of the way that match was played that gave the computer a decided advantage. Kasparov never got a chance to see any of Deep Blue's games. Kasparov never got a chance to play any warm up matches against Deep Blue. In otherwords, Kasparov went into the match "blind" as far as his opponent was concerned.
Deep Blue, on the other hand, had complete access to every professional game that Kasparov ever played, and a team of GM's working with the programmers to twink the machine to take advantages of weaknesses pin-pointed in Kasparov's games. In match play, preparation is the key to success. Against Deep Blue, Kasparov wasn't allowed to prepare.
This match is decidedly different. Kramnik has been given a copy of the program and the hardware to run it. He has been given time to analyze how the program plays and to see what weakness it has.
Moreover, Kramnik is a very positional player, whereas Kasparov was a very tactical player. Computers excel at complex tactics, even as good as Kasparov was, he can't out calculate a computer. However, that isn't the only way to play chess. Kramnik excels at finding positional improvements that will see their point well beyond the analysis horizon of the computer.
Kramnik has a very strong record against some of the best computers in the world. Including Fritz and Deep Junior - too offerings from the same company that makes Deep Fritz.
It is simply ignorance which would allow anyone to think that at this point in time the outcome of this match is a foregone conclussion. Certainly at some point in time the computers will be far better than people at Chess. But it is not the case that we are at that point today.
And for chess players and fans, this match promises to provide some very interesting games that will be well worth studying. And perhaps that aesthetic aspect is actually the point?!
Humans has to win, right ? (Score:1, Insightful)
One of those things are creativity. A human can very easilly come up with new ideas that has not yet been thought of. The brain can link things together in a way that a computer still (and probably never will be able to) cant do.
Anotherone is the ability to learn and adapt to unknown situations. A few days ago on
Regardless of how I see it, I see the human as the winner. Either we successfully create an ally that can help us, or we are still smarter. Just see the computer as an extention to the brain, and we are all winners :-)
Not unusual (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing unusual. In many chess tournaments, even the loser still wins a sizeable amount of money. Consider it as a kind of gage to remunerate their willingness to participate (and to risk some of their prestige if losing).
Re:Humans has to win, right ? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a good poing, but you ruin it with:
Every game that is possible has been played before.
Chess is a finite game, but I think you're underestimating how big that finite area of 64 squares really is.
A sufficiently powerful computer will always beat a human opponent, but creativity is important for the human if he is to have a chance. As I understand it, great human chess players don't play like computers, they play like great human chess players.
It's inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)
One reason that computers inevitably will beat us humans is that each year, computers get exponentially faster, which means the chess programs can search linearly deeper in the game search tree. It's simply a matter of waiting untill they are unbeatable.
However, that wait might be very long, but to top things over, algorithms are improving too. Some have thought in the past that our game-tree search algorithms were pretty close to optimal, but for example some of Aske Plaat's research [cs.vu.nl] clearly shows that this is far from the case, and that the old predictions about optimal performance was based on too simple and fundamentally unsound principles. Substantial improvements can be made. (not that I have anything to do with him. I don't know him and live in another country)
Even more important is the fact that we need not search the full search tree (indeed Deep Blue did not, using instead something called singular extensions). Rather, if we can make a heuristic that tells us which parts of the search tree are "interesting" we can skip the rest and only concentrate on those areas. In this way, computer chess is becoming a little more like human chess (though not much). The point is, as those "this part of the tree is interesting" heuristics get better, so will computer chess programs get better.
In short, the future of computer chess is bright, and we might have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Human superiority or even something resembling it simply will not last. Chess will neither be the first nor the last game where computers will always beat a human.
Re:Artificial Intelligence too advanced (Score:3, Insightful)
As to taking away peoples jobs of course computers will. Most jobs are boring, dull and totally pointless. Would you want to spend your entire career screwing nuts onto wheels in some car manufacturing plant or actually designing the next generation of cars while a robot did the dull stuff?
Strange though it may seem, everytime computers take away jobs people become better trained and get to do things which they wouldn't have otherwise. Look at the increases in higher education in the past few decades, the improvements in the standard of living for the majority of people, would you give it up for dumber computers?
And in answer to your final question: The world is becoming more complex. Fun isn't it? 8)
I see Kramnik as a heavy favorite. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sidenotes to the Deep Blue - Kasparov Match (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact, I really don't know. Deep blue poked questions at our definition of intelligence. IBM did something, with massive media coverage for sure, and at the end of the day, coming up with a meaning for the event is up to you.
I will say you deserve to get yourself a book about the event. You are obviously interested yet you live with a number of misconceptions. The interesting meat of the Db vs Kasparov games were played in mid games, so the dbs weren't that important. Ibm trained Deep blue at various tournament before meeting with Kasparov and faired very very well, getting slowly better as they accumulated feedback from players. Reading about the team's competence and dedication convinced me Deep blue was running the best chess playing program there is.
To me, Deep blue success lie in the following quote by Kasparov, after the 2nd game of the rematch :
In Deep Blue's Game 2 we saw something that went well beyond our wildest expectations of how well a computer would be able to foresee the long-term positional consequences of its decisions. The machine refused to move to a position that had a decisive short-term advantage -- showing a very human sense of danger. I think this moment could mark a revolution in computer science that could earn IBM and the Deep Blue team a Nobel Prize
Puzzled by the style he saw in the 2nd match, in found hard to keep his concentration and didn't play as well. Thus the remaining games are not interesting nor important. It is Kasparov's quote that changed my perception of intelligence and ai. Maybe, just maybe, intelligence has more to do with brute force computational power that we though it did
It made me optimistic for the future of ai. There this age-old question in ai about the limit. Will we recreate intelligence, and if not, what will break first : our ability to build ever faster machines, or out ability to program them elegantly. Thanks to Ibm, the later is now less worrisome
Vladimir had better not outwit himself like Gary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And, upon checkmating the machine, a cry is hea (Score:2, Insightful)
Does anyone have all the data on white moving a given pawn as its first play? What shall white do for its next move? Can black predict it? Consider chess to be exclusively a two-player game (or computation, or whatever)--black versus white. But poker, in a bizarre sense, always has at least three: a player, his opponent, and chance, each with their own secret information which the others cannot use to aid their own decisions.
I would be interested in seeing the definition of "game" according to game theory. Prisoner's Dilemma has neither the complexity of chess nor the chance element of poker, what with only two moves and four possible outcomes. I call it a game. What does game theory call it?