Álvaro Begué wrote: > Why does anybody care about how human-like our go programs' playing > style is? When we design airplanes we don't care about how bird-like > their flying style is; we care about objective measures like speed, > acceleration, energy efficiency... The merits of go programs should be > based basically on their ability to win games, although other measures > might be useful (ability to solve life-and-death problems, or to > estimate the final result of an incomplete game). > > Not being able to read ladders is definitely a weakness of most > current MC programs, and discussing ways of incorporating that > knowledge into them is interesting, but whether they have human styles > or not is completely irrelevant in my opinion. > I'm with you on this. I don't care if they "look like" human players. I care about how strong they play. However I do believe you can make an argument that internally they "think" more like a human. Nevertheless, no matter how you slice it all program are synthetic.
For some reason, and I don't know if it applies as much in GO, humans seem to value a program that plays more "human-like." Perhaps it makes them feel that there is more intelligence behind it. Here is an odd experience from computer chess. Many years ago I had some experts over to my house and we played games all night long of speed chess against 2 well known stand-alone programs. One of them was well known for it's "human-like" playing style and interesting play. The other was well known for it's very solid style and playing strength. They very much enjoyed playing the "human-like" program but played many games against each. I asked them which was stronger and there was no question in their mind - it was the one that played human-like. When I told them that it was the other machine that was stronger (by quite a large margin) they did not believe me. So we played several games between the two and the human-like program lost every game. The continued to believe it was some kind of fluke and thus we ended up playing about 10 games, where every game was a loss for the machine the believed must be stronger. This was a bit of an experiment in human psychology I think. I also believe we are unduly influenced by our eyes. The weaker machine was enclosed inside a beautiful sensory board, was physically much larger and had nice wood pieces. The stronger machine was a couple of years more up to date but was enclosed in a cheap plastic housing, had a cheesy pressure sensitive board (you had to press on the squares) and had cheap looking plastic pieces - it was a budget computer but it was clearly stronger. Although I think the playing style was more of an influence I'm sure the outward appearance of the device played a role. This is something all retailers know - it's all about the packaging, advertising, presentation. Packaging over real substance. I think us humans are a bit ego-centric. If something plays like us, we probably equate this with actual intelligence. It's like the warthogs in the far-side comic where the female warthog is saying to the other female warthog (in a bar) that "he thinks he is god's gift to warthogs." Warthogs probably think they are beautiful just as we think we are. - Don > Álvaro. > > > On Dec 12, 2007 8:18 AM, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > > Russ Williams wrote: > > On Dec 11, 2007 8:53 PM, Don Dailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: > > > >> The play-out portion is a crude approximation for imagination. > We > >> basically look at a board and imagine the final position. The MC > >> play-outs kill the dead groups in a reasonably accurate (but > fuzzy) way > >> and put the flesh on the skeleton. Near the end of the > game, the > >> play-outs end mostly the same the way the game itself would end > - and > >> the same way a human would expect it to look like. > >> > > > > This seems pretty fishy to me, given that MC can't read ladders > > accurately, for instance, but any competent human can, and that MC > > plays so bizarrely differently from humans in many positions, > > especially endgames. > > > > There may be strong theoretical arguments why MC is STRONG, and > there > > are clearly empirical demonstrations that MC IS strong, but it > is not > > at all clear that MC is somehow simulating/approximating the mental > > process of a human player playing the game. If it were, I would > > expect an MC player to make moves that look a lot more human. > > > > > It's not surpising that other methods make it look more like a human > playing because they are based more on mimicking the moves of a > human. Usually a human expert watches the games, see's an > error and > then makes a pattern. The pattern basically says, "play this move > because a human would." That's not the human approach, even > though > it will look human. > > It's like the chat bot competitions which are turing tests. Try to > fool people into believing they are talking to a human - but > really it's > a random phrase generator with some rules and patterns to mimic a > person. > > - Don > > > >> I attribute the success of MC to the fact that it's the best > simulation > >> of how WE do it. The other approaches are clearly more > synthetic, > >> including raw MC without a proper tree. > >> > > > > But those synthetic approaches seem MORE like what many human > players > > do (at least humans I've talked to), thinking discretely about > > different domain-specific concrete things like "are there any > > appropriate josekis for this situation?", "can I kill that group? > > what is its final internal eye shape going to look like?", "are > any of > > my groups endangered?", "is my opponent's moyo invadable? or > > reducible?", "does this ladder work?", "can these 2 groups be > > separated?", "can I make these stones live? can I do it in > sente?", > > "who has more ko threats now?", "how big is that ko threat > compared to > > the value of this ko?", "where is the biggest endgame move right > > now?", "where is the biggest sente endgame move right now?", > "which of > > these monkey jumps is bigger?", etc. > > > > At a literal detailed analysis level, MC is totally different > from how > > we do it. I know of no human player who imagines the 2 players > > randomly dropping stones over and over to see what proportion of > > wins/losses results. The basic "philosophy" of MC is radically > > different from how humans think about the game. (Which is not > to say > > that MC is a bad approach of course.) > > > > And at a higher level (in terms of the actual moves that > actually get > > chosen by MC), they also look very bizarre compared to a human > player, > > particularly in the end game where (as has been discussed a lot > > recently) a winning MC often fills its own territory or plays > neutral > > points when real points still exist, something a > better-than-beginner > > (to say nothing of strong) human player would never do. > > > > In the opening, strong humans typically are familiar with many > joseki, > > which MC is much less likely to randomly follow. > > > > And (to mention the actual subject of this thread...) a competent > > human player can read out most ladders correctly with certainty, > > unlike MC. > > > > and so on... > > > > cheers, > > russ > > _______________________________________________ > > computer-go mailing list > > computer-go@computer-go.org <mailto:computer-go@computer-go.org> > > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org <mailto:computer-go@computer-go.org> > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ > <http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/> > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
