3 ms·

Why are the chess games garbage?

• emporas 3y ago
  Magnus said something like that about CCC, the Computer Chess Championship. Engines, especially alpha-beta algorithms play in a very mechanistic way, totally unnatural. Granted ML algorithms are more human-like than alpha-beta, but even then their playing style is strange nevertheless. They are great tools to use, but smart? I don't think so. Edit-- I cannot find the source, but Magnus said that he doesn't personally look at computer games, (because they are garbage), not that the games by themselves are useless. They put one engine to play against another to test openings and positions. That's useful. It is that Magnus and most of other people, have no interest in watching games by engines.
  • stoneman24 3y ago
    Maybe the issue is the alpha-beta algorithms just string good moves together, there is no overall plan or intent. Perhaps the lack of narrative when we read through the move, feeds that sense of mechanistic play. I remember reading about a chess program that built plans and then considered moves in order to complete the plan. Not sure how this could be combined with the ML engines that we have but it might lead to a more natural playing style.
    • emporas 3y ago
      Yes, i could definitely see that. A multimodal chess engine, which evaluates several positions using a traditional chess engine, but it will play the move which has the more clear description using an LLM. It will not play the best move, but the one which is easier to put into words. Then it has the potential be much more interesting to human eyes.