Computers allowed in chess tournaments?
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However, when they allow computers into tournaments with humans I will cease playing in tournaments. I doubt any human weight lifter would agree to compete against fork lifts.....
Reb wrote: However, when they allow computers into tournaments with humans I will cease playing in tournaments. I doubt any human weight lifter would agree to compete against fork lifts.....
Absolutely. That's why there's a WNBA. Just because men are better at basketball doesn't mean women shouldn't be able to compete in their own league, which does not allow men. The same goes for chess. Humans should be able to compete against each other in tournaments which do not allow computers.
I would compete against a forklift. And win.
i think will be nice chess computer tournaments!computer against another computer and a computer chess champion!
well, every guy who use a computer......it´s not a chess player. It´s a fake player who is not honest to him self and don't assume " I can't play chess" !!!
Reb wrote:
Do you think computers should be allowed to play in chess tournaments with people? Would you play in such events yourself? My own opinion is that they shouldnt be allowed and I would not play in any tournament that allows them to play.
Sorry - there is a certain ambiguity in this question, but I like the idea of this even though you don't.
If you mean everyone in a given event playing against the SAME chess computer or chess program set to different strengths according to the player's rating, then yes on both counts. I think people V chess program/computer tournaments is a good idea and I would love to play in them.
Loomis wrote: Whatever you imagine the computer to be doing after you make your move and before it makes its move, it is a commonly accepted practice to use the word "think" to describe it.
It can't reason.
Feb 10, 2008
0
#49
"I think it's possible to remove the human aspect though"
I have no problem with the idea that a computer can conduct a game of chess and that the best programs utilizing enough computer power are probably suficient to beat the best humans most of the time. But conducting a game of chess and playing a game of chess are two very different things.
Take the earlier example: "even though cars move differently than humans, it's still true that cars "race" just as much as humans do." No, it's not true. If discussing human vs. car, a car has never won a footrace; if comparing cars vs cars, a car has never participated in any race without human guidance. It's the driver who wins, not the car.
When a computer conducts a chess game it has no choices. Its program, or algorithm, assigns it parameters and, after crunching the numbers in a given amount of time, selects a move by those parameters. It's proven to be a quite effective way to conduct a game of chess - but it has nothing to do with playing a game of chess.
Even if I win only 50% of my games, I play 100% of them. Winning and playing aren't connected. If my oponent decides to just make random moves, he's still conducting a game, but he's not playing. So, playing and conducting a game aren't necessarily connected. Playing involves more than movng pieces around and more than winning or losing.
Spirit is at the heart of playing. Recognizing and understanding our own strengths and weaknesses is the fabric of spirit. Skill, talent, knowledge are all essential to winning, but, above the most basic level, only spirit is essential to playing. It's not much, but it's human.
Machines have no spirit.
Machines have no spirit?!!
How cold a world is that you live in woman? I bet your toaster weeps each morning at your heartlessness. Although I have to admit, they are kind of inanimate and don't express themselves very freely. (careful, remember where this discussion is, they can hear us)
The whole computers in chess argument in pretty easily settled. tournaments with computers as players or tools should be kept to seperate to the people tournaments, the way car races and foot races are kept seperate. They each have their place, their own aesthetic and attractions, but to say that the existence of one needs to exclude the other is pretty rude. Easy.
But it's nice to hear how passionate people are :)
"When a computer conducts a chess game it has no choices. Its program, or algorithm, assigns it parameters and, after crunching the numbers in a given amount of time, selects a move by those parameters."
Isn't the same true for a human? It's a very different algorithm, but humans still look at the board -> compare different possible moves -> decide which move would be best, according to own current chess knowledge -> output "best" move.
"Spirit is at the heart of playing"
This seems arbitrary, as well as untestable. If I'm playing a chess game, and I'm bored, does that mean I'm not playing at all, because I don't have enough spirit? Would I get kicked out of a tournament for not having enough spirit?
Sorry, this is the mathematician in me talking. A good part of my day goes toward precisly defining abstract concepts.
Feb 10, 2008
0
#52
"Isn't the same true for a human?"
Not at all. Humans make moves based on emotions, intuition, desperation, laziness, stupidity, visual or mental illusions, long-term assumptions as well as on mere calculations.
"This seems arbitrary, as well as untestable."
It's not arbitrary, it's definitive. If you're simply making moves, you're involved in a game, you're not playing the game.
"Would I get kicked out of a tournament for not having enough spirit? "
No, but wasting your time in a tournament making pointless moves would be absurd. And a tournament isn't even about playing; it's about winning.
Of course, you can define playing any way you wish. And even though I may not agree in the slightest, I won't call it idiotic.
Computers are allowed at FICGS, ICCF and tacitly agreed to at many CC chess sites. No getting around it these days, they are everywere. I just try to play the best I can and win 8 of 10 times against them. They are not invincible but they definately are an annoyance!!
Computer use should be limited only to study, not to be used to play an opponent that you know you cannot win
I often have washed a game through a computer to see where I have made a mistake. And have even disagreed with the line the computer chose.
I'm not smart enough to know whether Batgirl is right, or janus255 is right, but I know that I WANT Batgirl to be right and it strikes me that wanting her to be right is what makes me a Chessplayer. A computer couldn't care less and therefore, in my book, can't be a Chessplayer.
You can understand what a rainbow is without being moved by it, but if you're not moved by it, then, in my opinion at least, you're not looking at a rainbow, just some colours in the sky.
batgirl wrote:
"Isn't the same true for a human?"
Not at all. Humans make moves based on emotions, intuition, desperation, laziness, stupidity, visual or mental illusions, long-term assumptions as well as on mere calculations.
Emotion, intuition, desperation, laziness, stupidity, and visual and mental illusions are all variables in the algorithm happening in the human brain and body (you don't play as good as you usually do when you have a leg injury distracting you). Of course, that doesn't argue with your main point. However, here is a question: If computers could make plans, use artificial intuition, and so on, would you consider it as the computer actually playing? If not, then why do you consider what humans do as playing?
Feb 10, 2008
0
#58
"If computers could make plans, use artificial intuition, and so on, would you consider it as the computer actually playing?"
The minute computers have the capacity to forget, to be distracted, to get mad and make a move without thinking, to start seeing double after three hours of playing... the minute a computer invests a part of it's ego and sense of worth into a game or to tries a crazy sacrifice just to see how it goes, or has to listen to it's boyfriend tell it, "I thought you knew how to play??" if it loses... the minute a computer cares one way or the other, then I'll consider them playing at chess. Until then, they just crunch numbers very effectively.
Meemo wrote:
I'm not smart enough to know whether Batgirl is right, or janus255 is right, but I know that I WANT Batgirl to be right and it strikes me that wanting her to be right is what makes me a Chessplayer. A computer couldn't care less and therefore, in my book, can't be a Chessplayer.
You can understand what a rainbow is without being moved by it, but if you're not moved by it, then, in my opinion at least, you're not looking at a rainbow, just some colours in the sky.
Obviously, neither are you intelligent enough to comprehend the idea of questions with no right answers, and depend on opinion. Also, are you saying that part of being a chessplayer is thinking that computers can't? Maybe someday that will be called anti-AI-ism (or discriminiation against artificial intelligents.) If computers could comprehend what you said, no doubt they will be offended (I'll just comment that I, unlike Pure__Ignorance, acknowledge the fact that they currently can't.) Now, I, personally, am not moved by the rainbow. Does that mean that I don't see it. Surely not (I may not see it the way you do, but I still see it.) Now, when a (hypothetical) robot looks at a rainbow, he see a bunch of pixels, which he with a yet to be written program discovers that they represent object[46320], which with his database discovers that translated to english, it is a "rainbow". Now, how can you argue that he did not see a rainbow? What is the difference between understanding what a rainbow is, looking at it, and knowing that what you're looking at is a rainbow, and seeing a rainbow. If can explain to me the difference, then we'd have more to discuss.
"The minute computers have the capacity to forget, to be distracted, to get mad and make a move without thinking, to start seeing double after three hours of playing... the minute a computer invests a part of it's ego and sense of worth into a game or to tries a crazy sacrifice just to see how it goes, or has to listen to it's boyfriend tell it, "I thought you knew how to play??" if it loses... the minute a computer cares one way or the other, then I'll consider them playing at chess. Until then, they just crunch numbers very effectively."
By those standards, I've never played a game of chess in my life.
I agree. Humans are far more impressive than computers. We're so far ahead it isn't even comparable.
However, I think we need to give credit where credit is due. Computers are better chess players. Saying that computers don't play chess at all, because they don't experience it in the same way is unfair, and untrue. Computers play chess, they do it well, and I think it is a good thing for chess to achknowledge it. To me, a well played game between two powerful oppenents is worth watching, reguardless of whether the players are organic.
Of course, I respect humans even more, because as Reb said, we are able to create them. As humans, we are able to create a being (not that I'm saying computers are alive, just that they exist). This computer is better than us at a specific game, but it's a game that is traditionally thought to be an "intellectual" one. I have to be impressed with some of the things technology can create.
" I'm sorry. Maybe it's because I've never had one of my arguments proven idiotic via anthropomorphism."
I started to thinking about this, and it's gotten me interested. I said before that computers play chess because "They understand the rules of chess, they choose moves, and they attempt to win." Understand, choose, attempt. You're absolutely right, these are human concepts, and it's questionable whether a computer could do these things at any capacity. I think it's possible to remove the human aspect though:
A computer understands the rules, in the sense that when asked "is ___ a legal move?" it can always answer and be correct.
A computer chooses moves, in the sense that of all possible legal moves availiable, it outputs only one.
A computer attempts to win, in the sense that if it possesses information that states a certain move will lead to victory, it will choose that move. Furthermore, a computer gathers this sort of information before it makes a move.
It that sense, I think it's fair to say computers play the game.
Hmmmm...I've made a politics/chess argument into a computer science/philosophy argument. Sorry about that.