Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> One of the many strengths of computer chess programs is that they are virtually guaranteed never to make such mistakes

Sometimes, though, you WANT computers to make mistakes. For instance, when a mere mortal wants to play a game of chess with a computer.

It's no fun to get repeatedly crushed, so chess computer developers try to provide a way to set the playing strength of the computer.

So far, this has generally not been satisfactory. Here's how games often go when you are not a grandmaster and you set a computer to play at your level. It starts out totally kicking your ass. Then it makes a completely idiotic move that even a beginner can see is bad, turning the game around so you are theoretically winning. Then it plays perfectly for a while, brutally punishing every mistake you make, and it ends up winning again. Then it makes another idiotic move, and so on.

It's kind of funny. We've basically solved the problem of how to make a computer play like a person with a 3100 rating, but how to make a computer play like a 1500 is still largely unsolved.

This is actually a problem with a lot of computer games: it's easier to make the AI super-human than it is to make it make realistic mistakes.

This comes up in situations like fighting games, racing games, and to some degree, RTS games. No one wants to play a computer that perfectly blocks, drives, or micros its units - the super human reaction times and control input can exploit the game engine and overwhelm a human player in almost every instance.

It's easier to make a computer with super-human skills than one which accurately replicated human foibles.

Sadly my own chess engine (Tarrasch Toy Engine see www.triplehappy.com) has solved the problem of playing like a 1500 :-)

Hey, I just wanted to say that your GUI (Tarrash GUI) is my favorite chess program ever which I am using every day. Its very simple clear and fast interface makes quick analysis a joy (comparing to waiting until bloated stuff like chessbase or aquarium loads).

Thank you, I love it when people say things like that! As I type this I am working on a massive upgrade that will introduce nice database features without bloating out the program (I hope).

I think the issue is that there is 1 (or possibly very few) perfect way to play the game, while there are endless ways to play it badly. When we want the computer to play badly we want it to play badly like a human would, so we're playing chess and trying to pass the turing test. When we want the computer to play perfectly we don't care if it seems like a human playing.

Wanting that is just evidence that chess is no longer a worthwhile game.

Computer programs are way stronger than humans but competition between them is still fierce and there is still long way to go until perfection. Current most known computer chess tournament: http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php

You can browse through the games... a lot is happening, maybe more than in human chess :)

How so?

What do you mean by that? If you enjoy playing it, it's a worthwhile game.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com