uh - oh maybe machine can be smarter than us

[stefan]

Computer checkmates chess champ
POSTED: 2:15 p.m. EST, December 5, 2006


BONN, Germany (AP) -- World chess champion Vladimir Kramnik lost his final game in a match against computer program Deep Fritz on Tuesday, ceding a hard-fought Man vs. Machine series 4-2.

Kramnik, seeking a final win to level the match, played an unbalanced opening with Black. He built up a good position and equalized. But he then went astray, losing a pawn from which he never recovered.

The Russian takes home US$500,000 -- half of what he would have received if he had won against Deep Fritz, a commercially available chess program that runs on a powerful personal computer

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[DiscGo]

I don't know how familiar you guys are with that computer program, but the fact that he beat it at all is amazing. The whole program was designed never to allow anyone to win. It calculates every possible move and is supposed to be impossible to beat. Anyway, that guy is amazing.

[tanya]

I don't know how familiar you guys are with that computer program, but the fact that he beat it at all is amazing. The whole program was designed never to allow anyone to win. It calculates every possible move and is supposed to be impossible to beat. Anyway, that guy is amazing.

Hope for the human race.

[Sombeech]

And it begins.

The humans have plans to scorch the sky, believing the machines' only source of power is from the sun....

[Brewhaha]

Computer chess is largely a matter of sheer, brute force calculations. The computer relies on its ability to see millions of variations in a short amount of time. On the other hand, human players are only able to consider a very, very limited number of variations. Instead, they rely a great deal on intuition, pattern-recognition, and general tactical and strategic principles. What is amazing isn't that computers are becoming more and more able to beat human players, but that humans are able to compete at all, given their limited memory capacities and their reliance on the "soft" principles mentioned above.

If you take another theoretically solvable game such as Go which has oodles more variations than chess and depends more on the "soft" principles than chess, computers haven't even come close to playing at the strong amateur level. Maybe in time they will compete, but, then again maybe not.

The media loves to glom onto these man vs. machine stories that point to the eminent demise of the human race. Where was the media when it was determined that computers could do basic mathematical calculations better than a human using paper and pencil.

[stefan]

The media loves to glom onto these man vs. machine stories that point to the eminent demise of the human race. Where was the media when it was determined that computers could do basic mathematical calculations better than a human using paper and pencil.

but as of yet, a computer is only as smart as the fool who programs it, perhaps not so one day.

computers were invented to do the basic calculations perfectly and efficiently so humans wouldn't have to.

[Sombeech]

Mister Anderson. It's the sound..... of inevitability.

[Scott Card]

Man vs. Machine???? Poppy cock.... I know where the outlet is. I win EVERY time.

[Iceaxe]

I recently heard about a new variation of chess, that I believe was being promoted by Bobby Fischer. Anyhoo.... in the new style you are allowed to set your pieces up in and order you wish before the game begins. The computers can't play and win. It still takes a human to play and win the game.

Computers are great with a database, but they still can not think.

[tanya]

Man vs. Machine???? Poppy cock.... I know where the outlet is. I win EVERY time.

I love men

[Iceaxe]

Man vs. Machine???? Poppy cock.... I know where the outlet is. I win EVERY time.

[Brewhaha]

What you are talking about Iceaxe is a variant often called Fischer Random. It's man purpose is to mix things up at the beginning of the game so that players (and computers) are forced to rely on their chess skills rather than their opening preparation. Many Grandmaster's know how the first 15-20 moves will go in a certain opening and will only start to really analyze the game after those moves have all been played. My guess is that Fischer Random may bring computers and humans closer but, in the end, really won't make alot of difference.

As an example of the weakness of a computer chess program consider a game where Black has only a King and White has only King, Knight, and Bishop. This is the hardest checkmate to achieve and a computer can only do it if it is given the exact moves in the form of what's called an endbase. In other words, a computer can't solve it on its own. On the other had, a GM can accomplish the mate as long as he has trained for it.