Will technology ruin the game of chess?

So, corporations are going to ruin the game of chess?

I think so.

Computers are helping to make evident the need for substantive changes to the game to keep it from stagnating into irrelevence. Since the world's population of experts have too vested an interest in the status quo to ever endorse meaningful changes to the game, only the threat of computers "solving" the game will break through such entrenchment. I suspect that in the next 20 years, the only viable solution will be to add a new phase to the game that makes existing databases of openings and existing bodies of opening theory obsolete. It will force computers to solve this new phase of the game, which will take time, and stave off the "death of chess" a little while longer. But probably not much. Chess is ultimately doomed.

Don't expect "a solution" anytime in your lifetime.  Most predictions (for simply beating the GMs) have been off by about 50 years.

For example, (luminiary, Alan Meltzler) from Carnegie Mellon in the 1950s, asserted hand held computers would be beating GrandMasters in "just a couple years."  Hardly.

Algorithmic "solutions" for the game are a very, very long way off, if ever.

But maybe some alien wrote down the solution on a clay tablet?

I'm sure you could find that episode on the History Channel. 

Ever thought of getting a record player (~$150) that plugs in to your computer via USB? You can then record directly to freeware like audacity. From there, you can convert to mp3.

Nice info

I think computers have already damaged the game of chess to say the least...

I agree. I think people should keep the chess computers the way they are. They're already too good.

Haha. That was an April Fools' joke! And I'm not kidding!

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No, computers can't ruin the game of chess. Does any PERSON have a powerful enough brain to calculate and evaluate positions like a computer? No.

I am going to 'go out on a limb' and say that the game of chess, as it is played today, will NOT be solved in the next 50 years---if ever, by computers or Man!  There are simply to many possible positions, what is the number commonly espoused; the number 10 raised to the 120th power?

Another thread, hopefully inferring support for my above statement; even the top Grandmasters of chess can not agree on which opening is the most advantageous from the very beginning for either White or Black.  Some like 1. e4, some 1. d4; and yet others something different.  (They do agree that the opening you should play be the one you are familiar with or understand.)

Just my $.02 USD.

 

Dee

When computers reach the point where no human on Earth can beat them, the game of chess will have been "solved" for all practical purposes. At that point, it will become as relevent as Tic Tac Toe. I don't think we are too far off from this today. The only way to delay this inevitable future, for a little while anyway, is to change the game so that humans are again competitive against computers.

Tic-Tac-Toe is simple enough that perfect play is quite easily within human capabailities.  Chess is not at all, so the idea that chess will one-day become only as relevant as Tic-Tac-Toe is, in this context, far from the truth.

Incidentally, computers have already surpassed the point you describe.

It is absolutely a thing, do a little research on game theory and you'll find that the questions of what constitutes perfect play, is the game drawn or or a win for white/black with perfect play, and is there an algorithm that can generarate perfect play are all central to the question of "solving" chess.

Maybe not for you.  I, on the other hand, just about got 'er figured out.

No.

I don't expect a solution anytime period.  The size and complexity of the problem is not only beyond our current computational capabilities, but with classical computing will never be possible.  An ultra-weak solution may (emphasis on the may) come about with the advent of quantum computing, but I'm convinced that a weak or strong solution is simply not possible and never will be.

So you keep showing me.

Chess is a game, as is tic-tac-toe. Computers will not ruin the game. After all, with your average tic-tac-toe player, they likely won't play absolutely perfectly 1 million out of 1 million games. Same with chess; but the average chess player might play a perfect game 0 out of 1 million games.

Sure a computer can play chess "perfectly," so that it will almost always beat a human. Almost, not all the time. We are not computers, and computers will not likely solve chess in quite a while, if ever, so no, chess cannot be ruined by technology.

I think technology has helped the game if anything. Before computers, if you wanted to play chess, you had to find a physical opponent by some means. Now with computers, an opponent is only a few clicks away, making training a whole lot easier.

The problem with everyone having easy access to chess is that everyone would be good and the ratings would inflate.

Yes, that is a very severe problem that will definitely ruin chess forever.