On Thu, 2007-04-05 at 10:18 -0400, Jeff Nowakowski wrote: > There is another reason for the negative reaction with regard to monte > carlo endgame play -- it is completely unhuman and unaesthetical. It > is > natural to make safer plays when ahead, but the monte carlo plays are > *so* ultra-safe as to look ugly. They are plays no human except an > absolute beginner might make. So I think the reaction by humans is to > be expected.
Of course. If it were easy to fix, I would want my program playing the more natural moves. > Obviously playing strength is the most important thing, though if play > could appear more reasonable without impacting strength and without > too > much effort then that would be best. Yes, I agree. As I mentioned earlier it affects our perception of how strong a program is. Many people see these endings and conclude the programs are pretty weak and really get surprised. Someone once accused my older program Botnoid of just making random moves and they saw that it was winning a lot more games that a random player would win and they couldn't believe it. This showed that they didn't really understand what they were looking at as a whole. It's the human way, like many of the older go programs the emphasis is mostly on local tactics, as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with the big picture. So humans have the same failings as computers, just not as pronounced. Maybe that's why UCT is getting so good? It no longer has that "local tactics is everything" sense of the game and so at least in this regard these programs are surpassing many humans. Wouldn't that be a hoot? To get better at GO you will be taught to see the big picture - think more like a computer! :-) - Don _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
