An insult to our imagination and creativity... means nothing to me. In fact its good that humans are still able to create and destroy "technologics", adore and love the human mind and its capabilities.
With the right rules changes could humans beat computers?
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A pocket calculator from the dollar store can outcalculate any human. I dont hear anybody complaining about that. A chess program is a human tool, get over it.
Actually I thought this thread would have ideas about how to change chess so that computers could no longer outcalculate human players, the way they can't do in the game "Go".
That would have been interesting. I don't know enough about Go to know why the best humans (and even the not so best, apparently) still beat computers handily. But whatever that something is, would be cool if chess had a little of that.
I think there was a chess variant called "Aarima" or something like that, that humans also apparently dominate. I think that was its whole reason for existing, actually.
Just doing a bunch of artificial stuff like limiting the size of computers to a human head (whose head?) isnt very interesting.
Pitching machines throw faster than human pitchers. Oh NO! Cars can move faster than olympic runners! What is the world coming to.
As far as game databases, opening books, and endgame table bases the OP is right. It's not just that computers "calculate better", they are loaded up with multiple books of easy knowledge and shortcuts which humans are strangely denied access to when playing against computers...
Shanahanahan wrote:
The point is that it would just be plain silly to reduce the computers strength just because it hurts the human pride and ego. Thats the point to instead say: "F...ck the human pride and ego - lets instead move on beyond all that nonsense!"
Now what could be cool on the other hand is to ENHANCE the human playing strength and test it against the machine. Not with the purpose of beating it , but as a scientific experiment to see what happens.
How could this be done? First of all you must give the human more time on the clock. Maybe even something like 5-6 hours for 40 moves. Also human consultation without engines would be very interesting because we would learn much about group decision making. And it would be great fun and entertainment for making video and putting everything out on the web. Another thing one could do is allowing the humans a few takebacks during the game, lets say they can have three takebacks. And maybe each time they can take back up to 5 moves backwards ( many variations are possible here ). And it seems fair to maybe play the computer without its opening book, since this is mostly the work of humans anyway. And playing them without book increases the chance of interesting innovations from the computer: It thinks by itself.
This could be a really cool contest IF the computer played at full strength with all processors firing and permanent brain with the strongest programs. Because the point must never bee to limit the core computer strengt, but to create super quality human chess to test it against. And have great interesting games as a result.
My prediction is that in such circumstances the computer would be clear favorite to win. But an even clearer favorite to win would be everyone involved both as players and spectators. Becuase if viewed as fun and as a scientific experiment it would be a great learning experience about both human and computer intelligence. We would learn something more about ourselves , about the example of chess and about intelligent decision making and resource management in general.
Win or lose some specific chessgames - the humans playing with and learning from the machines , will all totally win in any case :)
Great post! This is my prediction as well---we will see the highest quality chess ever played instead of the error filled games of today where fast time limits are the norm. We have no idea of the synergy of two players discussing a position. We may see them have the ability to extend analysis in the middlegame 20 moves ahead i.e. over the horizon of the computer. We will never know unless we start giving consultation games a try.
What is great about a consultation game is that we can be part of the decision-making process. We get to step inside the minds of the chessplayers and think as they think, see what they see. This will make a spectacular spectator experience.
I don't want humans to be able to beat a machine at all. Humans build machines to do things better than we can do. To cripple the machine so that a human can beat it is an insult to our imagination and creativity.