Don Dailey wrote:
On Sun, 2007-04-08 at 11:24 +0200, Heikki Levanto wrote:
In fact this is how beginners think about the game. It doesn't
seem to me like a good learning aid to try to get the computers
to "emulate" the losing strategy weaker players use.
Weaker players can not estimate the score until very late in the game.
Not with enough precision, anyway. Thus, most of the time they have no
idea if they are winning or loosing by 0.5 points.
But the whole idea is to take you PAST this level of understanding.
About 9 years ago, Dave Dyer wrote something in a private message to me
that has stuck with me. It has affected my thinking about the game ever
since. He wrote that games between strong players are played on the
knife-edge between life and death.
In fact it was this idea and ideal that inspired the name of my
may-never-come-to-be go program "KatanaGo", currently nothing more than
a pile of half developed ideas and experiments done in spare time over
the years. If I ever have the proper time to devote to computer-go,
perhaps it will play and in my dreams even play at this delicate balance
point. ;-)
To defend Heikki's point though, for a computer program to be a good
teacher it should be aware of the full game status which the UCT/MC
methods make difficult. In teaching mode the program could offer clues
and depart knowledge of this type about what is important and not
important in the game, L&D status, good and bad moves, and the reasons
for these. Of course this is an ideal way beyond just playing well.
From this perspective, neither a program which plays randomly because
the game is already won nor a program which aggressively exploits a won
position and destroys its opponent is the ideal teaching opponent.
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