Humans Hold Off the Machines... For Now 338
Murr writes "The six game match between Gary Kasparov and the Deep Junior program ended in a draw today. Kasparov won game 1 and lost game 3 to a blunder, while the other 4 games were drawn. While the quality of play was not outstanding, after the recent matches of Kramnik and Kasparov against commercial programs running on (high end) commodity hardware, it's becoming apparent that chess programs are getting quite competitive with top human players."
Go? (Score:5, Interesting)
-Sean
Why wasn't it made 7 games? (Score:1, Interesting)
Man Vs. Man-Made Machine (Score:2, Interesting)
I should think so, especially when the computer is programmed in part by chess experts, and plays more like a chess player than a computer.
From the NY Times [nytimes.com]:
Reason for the draw. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason Kasparov gave for the match, and the championship ending in a draw was that it was better to draw than to lose.
He claimed that while a human player would have the memories of past moves and past games to deal with, the computer would not. The computer simply makes the 'best' move for the given situation, and then waits to do the same thing again. The human player would consider moves he/she made in the past, compare the situation to others they may have had, second-guess the moves they might have made, and so forth.
It was interesting to see Kasparov attack, and then ask for a draw (which was denied) and then, two moves later, end the game in a draw.
'Puters don't get tired (Score:2, Interesting)
I think Kasparov should have continued and shown the machine who's boss
Good to see it was televised too - all good for getting more people into chess.
Human Chess vs. Machine Chess (Score:4, Interesting)
Human chess has qualities that computer chess still can't match up to. If we were really interested in measuring the level of computer chess we'd try to eliminate for factors such as weariness or stress as best we could. After all, chess is something more than that. We already know that computers will out-endure humans and there is nothing to be learned there.
Why did he offer a draw? (Score:5, Interesting)
Quality of play (Score:4, Interesting)
Just what are we comparing this to? Isn't Kasparov one of the top players in the world, if not the very top? I've read in some articles that he's considered by some to be the best player ever.
Neutralizing the computer's advantage (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd be very interested in seeing a match between Kasparov using a computer and Deep Junior. This would allow him to access an opening move database, and end game database and do enough analysis to avoid blunders.
Kasparov suggested this after his match with Deep Blue. I predict that a computer augmented GM would hold out against a computer opponent for many years to come.
Re:Go? (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, can someone venture an explanation why Go is so difficult to program? (I don't know how to play). Do the possible future moves diverge much more quickly than chess? (I've seen a Go board, and it seems to have significantly more spaces than a chess board, which taken to the Nth power can add up bigtime). Is it such that a computer can't practically look too far ahead in the game?
If that's the reason, then Go is really interesting because a computer cannot just brute-force it's strategies, and some semblence of actual AI (stress the I) needs to be accounted for.
Re:Go? (Score:3, Interesting)
One factor that I think is important is the fact that the guy on the street might be familiar with the name "Kasparov", at least more commonly than the equivalent Go-master (which is who, exactly?)
Also, it comes as no surprise to me that the people who put the effort and finances into these big chess playing computers would choose chess, which is a characteristically "Western" game... Why hasn't China's equivalent of IBM created the equivalent for Weiqi?
Re:Explanation (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Openings should be a strong point for computers, but Gary got an advantage in the opening in *every* game in the match. As you point out, the problem for computers is that humans look at their opponents openings, try to figure out weak points, and prepare traps for their opponents. Computers don't do this yet.
3. As you say, in the middle game, computers display a strange dichotomy. In quiet positions, they make stupid moves. E.g., in a couple games with Gary the computer played h3 (P-KR3), a move that had nothing to do with the game and weakened the kingside. On the other hand, they are deadly tacticians. Once Gary commited to an attack, things became tactical and the computer was very tough to beat; it found lots of weird-looking defenses that just barely worked.
Chess Go: In some ways the same: just a hurdle (Score:3, Interesting)
Now computers can hold their own to the top Grandmasters of chess.
If in ten years computers started to gain against Go playing humans I'm sure someone would try to find another game that computers suck in and say "I think computer vs human GameX matches would be more interesting".
Just don't let the last man vs machine game be between John Conner vs machine!
Re:Kasprov chickened out (Score:2, Interesting)
I am not a big chess freak, so I would have guessed that watching chess would be a lot like watching paint dry. However, it was made interesting by the "play-by-play" analysts who were chess masters themselves. They did a good job of explaining the moves, and also the psychology and strategy of chess at the grand master level. It really gave me a lot of insight into what goes on at when chess is played at such a high level.
After the match ended in a draw, they interviewed Kasparov. It was interesting to get his reaction to the match. Basically, his goal for the game was to "not lose", which is why he offered a draw from a very strong position. He didn't want to take a chance of making a blunder like he did in the third game of the match.
It seemed like the key advantage that the computer has in this situation is the fact that it doesn't have an ego to deal with. After losing to Deep Blue in 1997, it seemed like Kasparov was very afraid of losing to another computer in such a high-profile match. That definitely affect the way he approached the game.
The computer, on the other hand, is just calculating moves, so psychology doesn't factor into how it plays. To me, this seems like the biggest advantage that a computer has over a human player.
Also, he seemed to have more respect for this computer program than he did for Deep Blue. Apparently, he had a lot of problems with Deep Blue and how the 1997 match was handled. It could be sour grapes, of course, so I took his comments with a grain of salt.
To heck with chess.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Kasprov chickened out (Score:5, Interesting)
Any by the same reasoning, an auto can only run as fast as the mechanics who designed and built it. And a telescope can only see as far as the people who ground the lenses (or mirrors).
This whole thing is rather silly. And it'll end when we have software that can always beat a human.
After all, 200 years ago it was probably obvious that the ability to do arithmetic was a "uniquely human" thing. Then someone invented a mechanical calculator. Suddenly arithmetic became a merely mechanical capability that didn't imply superiority at all.
We have machines that can out run (and outfly
As soon as a computer can routinely beat a human at chess, we will give up machine-human chess competitions in the same way, and we will only compete with each other. Just like running and other competitions where we would always lose.
Not just brute force (Score:5, Interesting)
Nonetheless, Junior was almost certainly the better player. For one thing, the terms of the Deep Blue match were heavily tilted against Kasparov: he didn't get a chance to play against Deep Blue or even examine any games Deep Blue played before the match. For another, strategies of "anti-computer" chess are far more developed today than in 1997, when they barely existed (after all, the only way to build a world-class chess playing computer in 1997 was to build a supercomputer out of custom hardware). Third, Kasparov screwed up much more seriously in the 1997 match--one game he accepted a draw when he in fact had a provable win, apparently because he trusted the computer's evaluation of the position, and on several occasions he made terrible blunders.
Indeed indications are that even the normal Junior program on a decent PC plays the Kasparov-Blue games better than Blue did (except for a couple especially "brilliant" moves on Blue's part).
Not only is Junior (marginally) the best computer program available today, it is by a good measure the "most human-like". That is, it is still makes its share of "non-human" moves (although far fewer than Deep Blue), and still has no clue how to analyze certain positions, but its evaluation function has a much better understanding of position and is thus more willing to initiate complex piece exchanges than the other major programs. This showed up several times during the match, in two outstanding moves in particular (which netted come-from-behind draws for Junior in games 4 and 5).
Kasparov, by taking Junior out of its opening book, was able to exit the opening phase with the initiative in every single game. But in every game except for 1 and 6, Junior managed to draw even. In games 2 and 3, it was by virtue of outstanding tactical defense, which should have forced two draws (except that Kasparov screwed up the end of game 3 and lost). In game 5 it was with a shocking bishop sacrifice counterattack (extremely uncomputer-like) which nullified Kasparov's last turn as white (which is an advantage).
Perhaps game 4 [chessbase.com] is the best synopsis of the state of Junior's play. Kasparov played the opening perfectly according to plan, and ended up in a classic anti-computer position. Normally you can then just wait for the computer to screw up and then rip it apart. But while Junior did make a couple useless non-human moves, for the most part it played extremely well. Kasparov kept waiting to have an opportunity (perhaps too long), until finally Junior broke open the position by initiating an excellent multi-piece exchange. Kasparov had to settle for a draw.
OTOH, Junior had no idea what was going on in the endgame. Kasparov had a provable draw after move 47, but Junior, having no idea how to evaluate the position (no computer program does), thought it was winning. It played on until move 61 before the embarrassed programmers overruled the program and took the draw.
Overall, it seems that computers still have a ways to go before they can pass the Grandmaster Turing test. And it seems Kasparov really did just chicken out by accepting the draw in game 6. But the fact remains that Kasparov played quite well (for the most part) and simply couldn't convert his advantage in any game after the first. Meanwhile, while it still made a few computer-like moves that stuck out like sore thumbs, for the most part Junior played very solid chess with occasional strong speculative moves that would be aggressive even for a human.