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From: Don Dailey <dailey....@gmail.com>
> My basic observation is that over the several year period I have been in this
> forum, I have detected a huge amount of resistance to the idea that hardware
> could have anything to do with computer go strength, despite the fact that it
> keeps proving to be so. The resistance is strong enough that we have to
> explain it way when it happens, by saying things like we have hit a wall and
> it won't happen any more thank goodness.
You overrstate the "resistance" - it's not that anybody is saying hardware is
irrelevant. In fact, did we not have a recent discussion over the merits of two
different CPU variations? We've seen a fair number of multi-processor entrants
at competitions, besides.
The questions is"how much does hardware matter?" So far, we have one data point
to work with: David Fotland's excellent Many Faces of Go is "about one stone
stronger" when it uses 32 cores instead of 2. That's nice to have, but if we
extrapolate, a factor of 16 is 3 doublings or about 4.5 years, in terms of
Moore's Law. It will only take 9*4.5, roughly 40 years, to reach pro-level
play.
We don't have data from Mogo yet, but I wonder if they are seeing 2-3 stones
improvement for their 3200-node version?
The less patient among us may wish to seek algorithmic improvements to bridge
the gap a bit sooner.
Got to be some reason for bright programmers and mathematicians to work on the
problen, after all; otherwise we could just wait 40 years for Intel and AMD to
deliver 32,768 cores on a single chip - or will it be a silicon wafer?
In other fields, algorithmic improvements have led multiple orders of magnitude
improvement in running time. Humans manage to complete 30-minute games on a
19x19 board, so we do have evidence that the game can be played well at such a
speedy pace.
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