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Surely the whole Deep Blue thing is just a false dawn for AI. Beating a human player through brute force isn't _that_ impressive. If anything its obvious. What

Surely the whole Deep Blue thing is just a false dawn for AI. Beating a human player through brute force isn't _that_ impressive. If anything its obvious. What would be more impressive is a capped AI that can only look so many moves ahead and uses principles (such as say Nimzovich's opinionated twaddle) to win.

patio11 17y ago
In quite possibly my only point of agreement with Noam Chomsky, I think our discussions of AI are impoverished because they turn on a distinction of language not of fact. Machines that can "think" are AI, machines that can do impressive calculations but not "think" are just impressive calculators. This is not a statement about AI, this is a statement about the English word "think". It sheds about as much light as asking whether an aircraft carrier can swim. (I am informed that aircraft carriers do indeed swim... in Russian.) A lot of the other "Oh, that's just a cheap trick" non-AI things are a) much more useful to humans than the sci-fi notions people think of when they think AI and b) actually exist in the status quo. For example, if I told you that there exists a program which can make evidence-based judgments of a human's character to tell you whether they are likely to be trustworthy or not in their future business dealings, you would probably say "Egads! That is clearly AI! Holy cow, that is lightyears ahead of passing the Turing Test, and we're nowhere near passing the Turing Test!" But if I told you "The program is called a FICO score" then, pfft, that isn't AI, that's just clever math and good selection of data sources. This is one of the reasons why academic AI is, ahem, pretty dead as a field: after you actually get something working we drum you out of the field. Telling the topic of a document by reading it and understanding what it is about? AI! Leveraging anchor text on the link graph to do the work for you? Boooooooring. Granted, billion dollar business boring but still boooooooooring.
- ajross 17y ago
  Indeed. And from the other end work in neurology and applied computer science continues to push out the boundaries of things that count as mere "cheap tricks". 40 years ago, no one would have looked at the face recognition and red-eye reduction features on our $100 cameras and said it was "obvious". It looks a lot like "thinking" if you don't understand it. Likewise the operation of much of the brain is better understood than it was in the 60's, and we're less likely to ascribe magic terms like "thinking" to the brain; even things like consciousness are starting to look like a trick (albeit not a cheap one).
- camccann 17y ago
  It sheds about as much light as asking whether an aircraft carrier can swim. (I am informed that aircraft carriers do indeed swim... in Russian.) "The question of whether machines can think... is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim." -- Edsger W. Dijkstra This is one of the reasons why academic AI is, ahem, pretty dead as a field: after you actually get something working we drum you out of the field. Even if you're really just using techniques originally developed by AI researchers. It's kind of silly.
  - a-priori 17y ago
    Even if you're really just using techniques originally developed by AI researchers. It's kind of silly. ... in retrospect.
jvdh 17y ago
The circumstances of that match are still very very shady. Deep Blue prepared for the match using full knowledge of every game Kasparov ever played. Kasparov was not granted access to any game that Deep Blue ever played. During the match the team kept on reprogramming Deep Blue, to better combat Kasparov's style. Still, these days computer chess programs are probably better than most grand masters. I completely agree that that doesn't say much about AI though.
- KC8ZKF 17y ago
  I would not call that shady. All parties agreed on those conditions before the match, and of course Deep Blue was reprogrammed between games. Kasparov changed his approach based on Deep Blue's play, as well.
  - jvdh 17y ago
    If this was truly an AI approach then the reprogramming would not be necessary. Reprogramming Deep Blue is like replacing Kasparov with Anand, halfway through the match.
grandalf 17y ago
What if someone told you that between 2 and 3 seconds into Deep Blue's calculation it ruled out all the moves predicted by Nimzovich's opinionated twaddle? How is this fundamentally different from a human player contemplating the move and then 2 seconds later recalling Nimzovich, etc.?

patio11 17y ago

In quite possibly my only point of agreement with Noam Chomsky, I think our discussions of AI are impoverished because they turn on a distinction of language not of fact. Machines that can "think" are AI, machines that can do impressive calculations but not "think" are just impressive calculators. This is not a statement about AI, this is a statement about the English word "think". It sheds about as much light as asking whether an aircraft carrier can swim. (I am informed that aircraft carriers do indeed swim... in Russian.) A lot of the other "Oh, that's just a cheap trick" non-AI things are a) much more useful to humans than the sci-fi notions people think of when they think AI and b) actually exist in the status quo. For example, if I told you that there exists a program which can make evidence-based judgments of a human's character to tell you whether they are likely to be trustworthy or not in their future business dealings, you would probably say "Egads! That is clearly AI! Holy cow, that is lightyears ahead of passing the Turing Test, and we're nowhere near passing the Turing Test!" But if I told you "The program is called a FICO score" then, pfft, that isn't AI, that's just clever math and good selection of data sources. This is one of the reasons why academic AI is, ahem, pretty dead as a field: after you actually get something working we drum you out of the field. Telling the topic of a document by reading it and understanding what it is about? AI! Leveraging anchor text on the link graph to do the work for you? Boooooooring. Granted, billion dollar business boring but still boooooooooring.

ajross 17y ago
Indeed. And from the other end work in neurology and applied computer science continues to push out the boundaries of things that count as mere "cheap tricks". 40 years ago, no one would have looked at the face recognition and red-eye reduction features on our $100 cameras and said it was "obvious". It looks a lot like "thinking" if you don't understand it. Likewise the operation of much of the brain is better understood than it was in the 60's, and we're less likely to ascribe magic terms like "thinking" to the brain; even things like consciousness are starting to look like a trick (albeit not a cheap one).
camccann 17y ago
It sheds about as much light as asking whether an aircraft carrier can swim. (I am informed that aircraft carriers do indeed swim... in Russian.) "The question of whether machines can think... is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim." -- Edsger W. Dijkstra This is one of the reasons why academic AI is, ahem, pretty dead as a field: after you actually get something working we drum you out of the field. Even if you're really just using techniques originally developed by AI researchers. It's kind of silly.
- a-priori 17y ago
  Even if you're really just using techniques originally developed by AI researchers. It's kind of silly. ... in retrospect.

jvdh 17y ago

The circumstances of that match are still very very shady. Deep Blue prepared for the match using full knowledge of every game Kasparov ever played. Kasparov was not granted access to any game that Deep Blue ever played. During the match the team kept on reprogramming Deep Blue, to better combat Kasparov's style. Still, these days computer chess programs are probably better than most grand masters. I completely agree that that doesn't say much about AI though.

KC8ZKF 17y ago
I would not call that shady. All parties agreed on those conditions before the match, and of course Deep Blue was reprogrammed between games. Kasparov changed his approach based on Deep Blue's play, as well.
- jvdh 17y ago
  If this was truly an AI approach then the reprogramming would not be necessary. Reprogramming Deep Blue is like replacing Kasparov with Anand, halfway through the match.

grandalf 17y ago

What if someone told you that between 2 and 3 seconds into Deep Blue's calculation it ruled out all the moves predicted by Nimzovich's opinionated twaddle? How is this fundamentally different from a human player contemplating the move and then 2 seconds later recalling Nimzovich, etc.?