3 ms·

Computers have been playing chess for quite a while now though.

stjo 4y ago
Yes, but this is (one of?) the first pieces of software that plays chess, without being programmed to do so. It picked up the patterns, just like it picked up writing poetry. I doubt such approach will beat classical purpose-made engines anytime soon, but that’s not the point.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  I'm not really sure I see the point? Surely this is both more resource intensive and worse than a chess AI.
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    The goal isn't to use this to replace existing chess AI's, but to show how just a language model is able to perform a non-language related task very well. Also not only does it play correct moves (at a lower skill level than a proper chess AI), it is able to explain and justify it's move choice.
  - adrianmonk 4y ago
    It's not of practical use. The point would be understanding the nature of ChatGPT.
  - SoftAnnaLee 4y ago
    The point is that it is providing an unexpected and novel behavior in spite of having zero programming to produce this kind of output. It's odd and almost implies a kind of self-awareness to "understand" the rules to a complicated game, and then use logic to predict what is an optimal move. Even though it's only defined input being an incredible amount of text from across the internet. Is it going to be a good chess player? Not really. But likewise, a dog will never be a great basketball player; but if one manages to somehow get onto a team and demonstrate competency with the fundamentals and team play then I will be impressed too.
- singularity2001 4y ago
  I share adam(above)s assessment that bing has (most likely) to be connected to an external chess program. The extra work of getting a language model adhere to the rules seems highly implausible. At the very very least to check if moves are legal.
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  >> Yes, but this is (one of?) the first pieces of software that plays chess, without being programmed to do so. Wasn't it? There are large databases of chess games recorded in textual format on the internet, and ChatGPT's language model was trained to reproduce text found on the internet. Besides, I thought enthusiasm about large language models performing in tasks that they weren't directly trained on, peaked with BERT, back in 2018. I guess they just didn't hype it enough then so most people think it's something new. Or is that not the point?
tmalsburg2 4y ago
When you find yourself writing a comment like that, you should pause and ask whether you might be missing something.
- marginalia_nu 4y ago
  That's what I'm wondering though. I don't see what is new here. Seems like LLMs are blowing minds even when it does stuff AI has been doing for half a century.
  - alach11 4y ago
    People are having their minds blown because these LLMs are the closest we've come to Artificial General Intelligence. Rather than excelling at individual tasks, they seem to perform reasonably well (near human level) at almost every task. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      It isn't performing the tasks though, but making predictions. Old generation AI arguably did perform the tasks to a larger extent than LLMs do. I'm extremely skeptical this is anywhere near AGI.
      - alach11 4y ago
        > Old generation AI arguably did perform the tasks to a larger extent than LLMs do Nonsense - none of them were as general! What older AI do you believe performed the same variety of tasks as LLMs with a better result? Show me any older AI that can outperform LLMs at all of these tasks: - Write poetry - Do math - Carry on a conversation - Debug code - Play chess
        marginalia_nu 4y ago
        > Nonsense - none of them were as general! What older AI do you believe performed the same variety of tasks as LLMs with a better result? I did not say they were general, I said they performed the task, as opposed to predicting what someone having performed the task would reply. I'm contesting the I, not the G.

stjo 4y ago

Yes, but this is (one of?) the first pieces of software that plays chess, without being programmed to do so. It picked up the patterns, just like it picked up writing poetry. I doubt such approach will beat classical purpose-made engines anytime soon, but that’s not the point.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
I'm not really sure I see the point? Surely this is both more resource intensive and worse than a chess AI.
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  The goal isn't to use this to replace existing chess AI's, but to show how just a language model is able to perform a non-language related task very well. Also not only does it play correct moves (at a lower skill level than a proper chess AI), it is able to explain and justify it's move choice.
- adrianmonk 4y ago
  It's not of practical use. The point would be understanding the nature of ChatGPT.
- SoftAnnaLee 4y ago
  The point is that it is providing an unexpected and novel behavior in spite of having zero programming to produce this kind of output. It's odd and almost implies a kind of self-awareness to "understand" the rules to a complicated game, and then use logic to predict what is an optimal move. Even though it's only defined input being an incredible amount of text from across the internet. Is it going to be a good chess player? Not really. But likewise, a dog will never be a great basketball player; but if one manages to somehow get onto a team and demonstrate competency with the fundamentals and team play then I will be impressed too.
singularity2001 4y ago
I share adam(above)s assessment that bing has (most likely) to be connected to an external chess program. The extra work of getting a language model adhere to the rules seems highly implausible. At the very very least to check if moves are legal.
YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
>> Yes, but this is (one of?) the first pieces of software that plays chess, without being programmed to do so. Wasn't it? There are large databases of chess games recorded in textual format on the internet, and ChatGPT's language model was trained to reproduce text found on the internet. Besides, I thought enthusiasm about large language models performing in tasks that they weren't directly trained on, peaked with BERT, back in 2018. I guess they just didn't hype it enough then so most people think it's something new. Or is that not the point?

tmalsburg2 4y ago

When you find yourself writing a comment like that, you should pause and ask whether you might be missing something.

marginalia_nu 4y ago
That's what I'm wondering though. I don't see what is new here. Seems like LLMs are blowing minds even when it does stuff AI has been doing for half a century.
- alach11 4y ago
  People are having their minds blown because these LLMs are the closest we've come to Artificial General Intelligence. Rather than excelling at individual tasks, they seem to perform reasonably well (near human level) at almost every task. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_general_intelligenc...
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    It isn't performing the tasks though, but making predictions. Old generation AI arguably did perform the tasks to a larger extent than LLMs do. I'm extremely skeptical this is anywhere near AGI.
    - alach11 4y ago
      > Old generation AI arguably did perform the tasks to a larger extent than LLMs do Nonsense - none of them were as general! What older AI do you believe performed the same variety of tasks as LLMs with a better result? Show me any older AI that can outperform LLMs at all of these tasks: - Write poetry - Do math - Carry on a conversation - Debug code - Play chess
      - marginalia_nu 4y ago
        > Nonsense - none of them were as general! What older AI do you believe performed the same variety of tasks as LLMs with a better result? I did not say they were general, I said they performed the task, as opposed to predicting what someone having performed the task would reply. I'm contesting the I, not the G.