Will computers ever solve chess?

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Avatar of DiogenesDue
s23bog wrote:

It is like looking at a very large body of water with you standing on one little part of it holding a bucket, and wondering how to empty the body of water.

Magnitude-wise it's more like standing on earth with a single bucket and needing to empty our entire galactic cluster of water.

Avatar of DiogenesDue
s23bog wrote:

Always feel the need to correct people with your own opinion, don't you, @btickler?

Not at all.  Just people spouting misinformation and propagating fuzzy logic.

Avatar of JustOneUSer
Wow. We're really having an argument about how big a metaphorical body of water is.

Oh, I love the Internet! :D
Avatar of game_designer

Go to Menu | Learn | Analysis

 

Set up a K+B+N v K position, one line, max strength and watch what happens.

 

The engine is stockfish.js this was machine ported from stockfish written in C++

 

Javascript does not support the UINT64 data type so bit boards are not used and no endgame tablebases are used either.

 

What does the engine spit out? Complete garbage.

 

Seems like computers (or is that humans?) have a very long way to go.

Avatar of SmyslovFan

Your computer may have difficulty with this, but computers in general have worked out every endgame with 7 pieces or less.

Avatar of nimzomalaysian
game_designer wrote:

Go to Menu | Learn | Analysis

 

Set up a K+B+N v K position, one line, max strength and watch what happens.

 

The engine is stockfish.js this was machine ported from stockfish written in C++

 

Javascript does not support the UINT64 data type so bit boards are not used and no endgame tablebases are used either.

 

What does the engine spit out? Complete garbage.

 

Seems like computers (or is that humans?) have a very long way to go.

What are you trying to say? That computers can't win this position?

Stockfish on my machine found a mate in 28 in under 15 seconds.

 

Avatar of SmyslovFan

Who do you think created the table bases?? 

 

Sheesh.

Avatar of DiogenesDue
s23bog wrote:

It is called metaphor.  Perhaps you could work on your communication skills.

As if you had anything to impart...okay, well, I guess I will stop trying to convince any of the "ignorance is bliss" crowd.  You'll have the whole rest of your lives to realize you are wrong, since chess won't be solved wink.png.

P.S. You and game_designer are like a match made in heaven.  You can pseudo-intellectualize yourselves into a stupor.

Avatar of JustOneUSer
Really? He said " like using a bucket to clear a body of water" (para-phrasing) you said "more like a bucket for the entire earth" (para-phrasing) and now he will be an ignorant idiot for the rest of his life? 😂 this is such an entertaining thread.
Avatar of DiogenesDue

He's proven it before, which you may or may not know, suspiciously Tuna-like poster...in any case, if you find the thread entertaining, perhaps you should read all 60 pages so you can post some kind of informed opinion.  Unless you genuinely prefer w**king in the corner watching.

Avatar of JustOneUSer
Okay... Thanks for the insults. :) very much appreciated. :)

Can't we all just keep our cool on the Internet? We're not kids.
Avatar of camter
game_designer wrote:

Go to Menu | Learn | Analysis

 

Set up a K+B+N v K position, one line, max strength and watch what happens.

 

The engine is stockfish.js this was machine ported from stockfish written in C++

 

Javascript does not support the UINT64 data type so bit boards are not used and no endgame tablebases are used either.

 

What does the engine spit out? Complete garbage.

 

Seems like computers (or is that humans?) have a very long way to go.

 

Truly, is that as good as a modern engine can do?

The technique surely is:

(1) to drive the king to the edge of the board,

(2) deprive it use of the safe corner, and then

(3) drive it across to the fatal corner to where it is mated.

If the King in certain positions tries to resist the process in (3), he is mated on the edge.

If the programmers had read Averbakh, which Book I have lost, they would know the key positions where the King feins to escape.

That is where the problem lies for the computer as it is a bit complex, but anyone who practises the mate gest to know the key crucial positions.

But, humans have mental templates which are hard to tell the computer how to recognise.

That is why artificial intelligence is such a difficult problem.

But, I was old and had lost a few brain cells when computers really attained the monstrous capacity and speed they have today, and the new tech could have done better now than it has achieved.

Thank goodness for that, because today's nerds could be very dangerous.

The hackers are stopping them from being more so, vandals and nihilists that they are, but they have their uses.   

Avatar of camter

Yeah, that position, if I recall at White's 8th, could go into one of those Table Base things  as crucial. The King move is not the best, and may be just plain bad or wasted.  

But Table Bases do not give a method, do they?

Sorry, I am not a Computer Scientist, Chess Expert, or whatever, but just a generalist who can think fairly well.

But, my satirical side upsets people.

Avatar of ProfessorPownall

Did I interpret correctly ?

Without an endgame table base, stockfish can not solve B+N checkmate?

Avatar of camter
ProfessorPownall wrote:

Did I interpret correctly ?

Without an endgame table base, stockfish can not solve B+N checkmate?

Looks like it, doesn't it?

But, surely the problem has been programmed into Stockfish or another engine by now.

I have a program which has no trouble with th B+N mate.

it never fails, although its algorithm is hard to follow, as it always finds the quickest way without following the 3 phase program i outlined blindly.

Avatar of SmyslovFan

Don't believe everything you read, especially when you can disprove it in under a minute.

Avatar of camter
SmyslovFan wrote:

Don't believe everything you read, especially when you can disprove it in under a minute.

Dear me, SmyslovFan, you are even harder to understand than I am, and believe me, I try to be obsure, I really do!

But, you will not believe me, I know, because you read me.

Avatar of SmyslovFan

 

Let me be plain:

 

plug the position into stockfish and wait less than a minute. It will solve the mate even without reference to a database unless your computer is very old.

 

Claims that engines can't solve basic mates are easily disproven. 

 

Avatar of camter

I had to goad you into being plain.

Clear as a bell when you want to be!

But, perhaps you are a diffident person by nature.

I took a long time to come to respect you, But, in all kindness, I sometimes find you hard to follow which is a pity, as you know so much.

Maybe, because I am not as smart as I think I think I am.

The wheels fell off Descartes. 

Avatar of game_designer
SmyslovFan wrote:

Who do you think created the table bases?? 

 

Sheesh.

Working backwards from all checkmate positions.

 

Is that what you are calling solving chess, really?

 

How much space does a 6 piece tablebase take up on your hard drive?

 

I think the answer will shock you, too lazy to check, 16GB or more I think.

 

Why have the supercomputers not yet cracked past 7 piece tablebases?

 

Because there is a 2 to the power of who cares increase in the time, calculations, RAM requirement and HD storage space.