3 ms·

> AlphaZero neatly side steps this by generating it's own training data by playing itself. If how to do this was "obvious", it would have been done a long time

> AlphaZero neatly side steps this by generating it's own training data by playing itself. If how to do this was "obvious", it would have been done a long time ago. It was done a long time ago. Arthur Samuel's chequers program (1959) improved by playing against itself in thousands of games. People can and do improve that way too: https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/playing-against-yourself https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/playing-against-you...

igravious 9y ago
> People can and do improve that way too When learning Chess or Go, playing whole games with myself would be too tedious. Do people really do this? But I have played countless opening sequences in chess and many many joseki lines in go, I have practised various piece mating combos in chess and different yose techniques in go, one does chess problems from newspapers or books and of course everyone knows you do go problems (tsumego) to get strong at go – this means I only ever play small subsets of both games against myself. Never whole games. It is this ability that the machines have over us. The only whole games I've played are both sides of grandmaster level competitive-games in each board-game. But then, that's not really playing against myself where I choose each move. Some expert has chosen the move for me. Interestingly, AlphaZero does not need to learn this way because it can play itself so many times. Because that amount of times would be too tedious (possibly even unfeasible) for a human we will always continue to learn from expert play. When AI is smart enough to know what expert play _is_ it may go back to using that technique.
- grondilu 9y ago
  > When learning Chess or Go, playing whole games with myself would be too tedious. Do people really do this? Chess World Champions Robert Fischer and Magnus Carlsen notoriously did as children. Magnus Carlsen even recommended it as one of his top 13 tips to improve : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs
  - igravious 9y ago
    Huh, that's interesting. I've read up on both of them and didn't know that factoid. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong in my chess career.

igravious 9y ago

> People can and do improve that way too When learning Chess or Go, playing whole games with myself would be too tedious. Do people really do this? But I have played countless opening sequences in chess and many many joseki lines in go, I have practised various piece mating combos in chess and different yose techniques in go, one does chess problems from newspapers or books and of course everyone knows you do go problems (tsumego) to get strong at go – this means I only ever play small subsets of both games against myself. Never whole games. It is this ability that the machines have over us. The only whole games I've played are both sides of grandmaster level competitive-games in each board-game. But then, that's not really playing against myself where I choose each move. Some expert has chosen the move for me. Interestingly, AlphaZero does not need to learn this way because it can play itself so many times. Because that amount of times would be too tedious (possibly even unfeasible) for a human we will always continue to learn from expert play. When AI is smart enough to know what expert play _is_ it may go back to using that technique.

grondilu 9y ago
> When learning Chess or Go, playing whole games with myself would be too tedious. Do people really do this? Chess World Champions Robert Fischer and Magnus Carlsen notoriously did as children. Magnus Carlsen even recommended it as one of his top 13 tips to improve : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMaaHd7aFIs
- igravious 9y ago
  Huh, that's interesting. I've read up on both of them and didn't know that factoid. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong in my chess career.