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        Arimaa >> Off Topic Discussion >> Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
        
(Message started by: SimonDorfman on Feb 20^th, 2010, 10:03am)

Title: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by SimonDorfman on Feb 20^th, 2010, 10:03am

An interesting article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23592

Garry Kasparov:

Quote:

What if instead of human versus machine we played as partners? My brainchild saw the light of day in a match in 1998 in León, Spain, and we called it “Advanced Chess.” Each player had a PC at hand running the chess software of his choice during the game. The idea was to create the highest level of chess ever played, a synthesis of the best of man and machine.

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by Eltripas on Feb 20^th, 2010, 12:46pm

Some players use bots to make analysis after the game in arimaa. Maybe with practice a bot could be used effectively in a game.

In chess I don't think that is a good idea anymore since the top level is already owned by computers, as far as I know.

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by The_Jeh on Feb 20^th, 2010, 2:05pm

on 02/20/10 at 12:46:57, Eltripas wrote:

I guess the Mob game is the only game where computers and humans are working together, although the computers tend to take a very subsidiary role. Maybe someday we will be able to have a human+computer tournament.

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 21^st, 2010, 7:06am

As Kasparov pointed out even in that article, when computers started getting better than humans, the humans no longer needed to contribute any chess knowledge to the team in order to play well. And for Arimaa, there is little for the bots to contribute at present except in endgames.

These two examples make me suspect that the man/machine partnership is most interesting when partners are near equal strength. Cyborgs are cool in principle, but in practice it may usually boil down to handing off only a tiny, well-defined task to the computer, or to handing off everything to the computer except a tiny, well-defined task reserved for the human. The gray area of creative interaction may be relatively small.

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by 99of9 on Feb 22^nd, 2010, 3:33pm

on 02/21/10 at 07:06:57, Fritzlein wrote:

there is little for the bots to contribute at present except in endgames.

Are bots now better than humans at endgames? Perhaps we should have an endgame challenge once the CC is over. Starting say 10 moves out from the eventual goal of a bunch of close games, playing twice with sides reversed.

Surely you're not conceding part of the game already Fritz? Or do you just mean the final forced lines? :)

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by Fritzlein on Feb 22^nd, 2010, 6:39pm

on 02/22/10 at 15:33:18, 99of9 wrote:

Surely you're not conceding part of the game already Fritz? Or do you just mean the final forced lines? :)

I may be over-generalizing from my own weak goal attack and defense, but yes, I do concede that bots will usually outplay me in endgames of, say, eight pieces on a side or fewer. This is in addition to bots being better than me at finding freak forced goals and miraculous defenses on a full board with a temporary imbalance.

Arimaa so much in flux, though, that I can imagine humanity (and even me) getting significantly better at endgames when we pay more attention to them and get some of the theory codified. For starters, reading a draft of chessandgo's chapter on endgames has already helped me.

I haven't missed having a computer in my corner for the Mob game until this most recent move. It would be a huge timesaver if I could check the end of some lines where I think I have stopped the goal attack but I am not sure. I am probably going to lose the Mob game on some move when I allow an attack that I think I can defend but can't really. That's not a problem, though, because I'm going to lose the game anyway, and I need the goal attack/defense analysis practice.

By the way, very nice 30g from the Mob just when I thought I had sufficiently slowed a rabbit advance up the h-file. I didn't even think about a rabbit coming up the f-file. I had three weeks to think, and the time was not full of happy thoughts. In fact, I mostly avoided contemplating how doomed I am by altogether avoiding analyzing. :'(

Title: Re: Human + Machine instead of Human vs Machine
Post by 99of9 on Feb 23^rd, 2010, 5:29am

So now the challenge for us bot designers is to get into the endgame. Unfortunately it's at the end 8).