I don't require anything to be that precise, but I want statements to have a bit of substance. Phrases such as, "he is good" depends on a frame of reference.
The best players in the world are not a good frame of reference either, they certainly do not represent humanity in general. And how good humans play is based on their culture and education too. So when we compare programs to humans, we usually mean some very well trained human, someone in the 95th percentile or something like that, not really a representative of human-kind. So which measuring stick do you consider to be "accurate" for comparing how computers (not humans) play completely different games? If you compare the average player, we have probably already succeeded - the best computer go programs are much better than the average go player. So now all we have to do is make progress and move up the ranks, just like humans have to do - and stop calling it hard. That is a given and is why we do it. I do computer chess for the same reason, it is very hard. On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Mark Boon <[email protected]> wrote: > On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 11:49 AM, Don Dailey <[email protected]> wrote: > > How can I dispute it, you do not define terms? Break it down, when > you > > say "Go is much harder than Chess" what does that even mean? 13 is > much > > harder than 27. What does that supposed to mean? Dogs are harder > than > > Cats. If it means it's harder to write a go program, then I > completely > > dispute it - I can write a go program much faster than a chess program. > > Both program will play very well if I define "very well" to be random > play. > > My point is that hard or easy is an arbitrary concept and I don't > believe > > there is any reason to believe that how humans play is some kind of > sacred > > yardstick. If you make that the yardstick, then GO comes up short. > > I agree that people are often lacking in defining precise terms. But > it's also possible to be unreasonably dense by ignoring some basic > assumptions that many, if not most, take for granted. Doing so > deliberately doesn't help the discussion of course. > > Would you agree with a slightly more precise statement: Go is harder > to program to match a human expert than chess. It almost doesn't > matter how you define expert. But let's say something like the top 1% > of players or the top 1000 players of the world. As long as you use > the same criteria for chess experts and Go experts. I have yet to hear > about a better yardstick, either from you or anybody else. Not > surprisingly, because apart from computers and humans I don't know of > anything else that we could use. And to compare computers to computers > is obviously meaningless in any absolute measuring sense. So measuring > humans versus computers is the logical choice to start with. And > possibly the only one until you have some other point of reference, > like a perfect player. But only if you can prove that progress is > smooth and not too jumpy. For example: if you have a perfect player > and the 'almost perfect' player A can never win more than 10% against > the perfect player without being perfect itself. But maybe you can > have another 'almost perfect player' B that also wins 10% (or less) > against a perfect player but wins 70% against A. We already see this > happening where difference in level of a group of different MCTS > programs does not translate to the same difference against humans, or > even a different set of of programs. > > Maybe some day computers will learn to program. And who knows they'll > find it easier to program Go than chess. Somehow I'm doubtful, but > until we have more evidence about this it's fair to use the evidence > we currently have at hand. > > Mark > _______________________________________________ > Computer-go mailing list > [email protected] > http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/computer-go >
_______________________________________________ Computer-go mailing list [email protected] http://dvandva.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/computer-go
