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How a random bug in Deep Blue may ultimately have led to Kasparov's defeat
- fitandfunction 14y agoAs learned in CLRS ... when you're stuck, randomize. That turned out to be a great solution in way more problems than I had anticipated.
- lloeki 14y agoMaking a choice (any choice) is often better than making no choice at all, although not choosing at all is itself an often overlooked valid choice ("A strange game. The only winning move is not to play"). There's an oxymoronic french expression reflecting that often overlooked possibility, especially in dire situations: "Il est urgent d'attendre" which could be translated as "it is most pressing to wait".
- Robin_Message 14y agoThere's also the phrase by Dr. Linda A. Lewis: "Don't just do something, stand there!" to exhort careful consideration even in face of a crisis.
- cbsmith 14y agoIt's not even that really: if you are stuck, that means as near as you can tell, all candidate moves are equally good. Picking any one of them (at random, or through any other heuristic) can only be a bad move if there is something you missed about their relative value.
- riffraff 14y agocontrast: Buridan's Ass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass
- orjan 14y agoAmazon seems to have two different Kindle editions of this, with different prices: 1. For $19.54 you get this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Predictions-ebook/dp/B007V65R54/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348729749&sr=1-1&keywords=the+signal+and+the+noise http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Predictions-ebook/dp/... (The Penguin Press) 2. And for $13.79, you get this: http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Prediction-ebook/dp/B0097JYVAU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348729820&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/The-Signal-Noise-Prediction-ebook/dp/B... (Allen Lane) I have no idea if there is any difference in the editions besides the price. Page numbers differs but that means nothing EDIT: grammar.
- Stratoscope 14y agoWhen I follow your links I see the Penguin edition for $14.99 and the other edition "not available".
- orjan 14y agoMight be an Amazon territory thing, then. I'm in Europe.
- DanBC 14y agoI'm in the UK and I get "pricing information unavailable) for both of them. EDIT: Using UK amazon I get this (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Signal-Noise-Prediction-ebook/dp/B0097JYVAU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348738888&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Signal-Noise-Prediction-ebook/dp...) which shows £14.99 for me. This is what pisses me off about ebooks. I understand that they can't be dirt cheap because you still need editors and proofreaders and setters and authors, and all those people need paying, but $15 = £9. (£15 = $24). Amazon UK charges a 20% sales tax (VAT) for UK ebooks. (I have no idea if Amazon actually pay their tax or if they're the type of company using vigorous avoidance schemes.)
- pmjordan 14y agoI have no idea if Amazon actually pay their tax or if they're the type of company using vigorous avoidance schemes. My understanding is that for eBooks and other digital downloads, they do. They get around VAT for DVDs and similar items by subbing out to companies on the Channel Islands, which are not in the EU VAT zone, and shipments below a certain value are not subject to import VAT. This is why if you buy 10 DVDs on Amazon, you get 10 distinct shipments and invoices (and your bank might block your credit card because of 10 separate transactions happening simultaneously… I speak from experience). As far as I know, it would be highly illegal for them to charge VAT and not actually pass it on to HMRC.
- Devilboy 14y ago44...Rd1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8guNB96rVgw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8guNB96rVgw See 3:10. Deep Blue resigned at move 45.
- kqr2 14y agoFrom the article: Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He had never considered that it was simply a bug. Does anyone know the source for that? Game 2 was definitely pivotal, but I couldn't find any reference to indicate that he gave up because of the random move in Game 1. Regarding Game 2, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/tech/analysis/kasparov/kasparov.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/tech/analysis/kasparov/... In that game, Deep Blue made a series of brilliant moves but then failed to anticipate one Kasparov could have made -- but didn't -- to force a tie. Kasparov, who didn't notice the possible move until it was pointed out to him after the game, said: "I still don't understand how the machine couldn't see that."
- jc123 14y agoAgree this all sounds apocryphal. In a losing position there were not too many choices and 44...Rd1 seems reasonable even though it may not have been the best move to prolong the game the longest.
- brindle 14y agoI read an article years back and I think it was in the Wall Street Journal. My understanding was that an unexpected grandmaster-level move at a point where Kasparov was expecting to see a different move occurred. Kasparov suspected user intervention. Unfortunately the event was sponsored by IBM, so ther was potential for a conflict of interest. He requested to see the source code and the game logs which was denied by IBM. IBM also disassembled the computer immediately after the match to re-purpose the computer for protein folding. I think this book is rewriting history. Kasparov was devastated.
- T-hawk 14y agoI remember that incident as well; it was the next game after the random rook move and Kasparov was already unsettled about the computer's capabilities. By my memory, it went like this: In a complicated midgame, Kasparov moved a pawn to a square under attack. He intended to sacrifice it for positional gain, opening up his attack lines and compromising the opponent's defensive structure. Kasparov expected that a computational chess engine would seize the calculable material gain and not see the deeper positional subtleties. (Deep Blue 'only' searched ahead about 10 to 15 moves, not nearly as deep as today's computers.) Deep Blue did in fact decline the pawn sacrifice, causing Kasparov to accuse IBM of intervention, that only a human grandmaster would see the response. This Wikipedia article mentions Kasparov setting a trap that the computer did not fall for, but it doesn't mention the details. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Over:_Kasparov_and_the_Machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Over:_Kasparov_and_the_Mac... It happened in game 2 of the 1997 match, the moves of which are recorded here. I haven't got the time at the moment to find the position in the game but perhaps someone can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov
- SagelyGuru 14y ago"Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence." and that is how we humans come undone: we worry too much.
- Florin_Andrei 14y agoThe pattern-recognition engine in the human brain is overcranked.
- anthonyb 14y agoExcept that this exact situation had happened in earlier games - see cube13's link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4583135
- fts89 14y agoKindle version: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007V65R54/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&tag=asdfdsa-20&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B007V65R54&linkCode=as2 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007V65R54/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...
- hasenj 14y ago> Kasparov had concluded that the counterintuitive play must be a sign of superior intelligence. He had never considered that it was simply a bug. I think this says quite a bit about chess as a game. That a top player can't recognize a bad move near the final stage of the game. In contrast, the game of Go is rich with examples where one player makes a bad move and the opponent takes advantage of it; and I'm talking about top players; not amateurs. Following the opponent and/or always responding to his moves is considered a typical sign of a weak player. One of the things you learn as you get better is to never assume that the last move of your opponent is necessarily a good move. Imagining that your opponent has a threat you haven't yet figured out is one of the bad habits that weak players must get rid of before they can become stronger.
- pessimist 14y agoI'm not aware of the move in question, but you are overinterpreting wildly. Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. In this case though Kasparov was trying to defeat Deep Blue with an anti-computer style, he had a particular model in mind for how the computer would play and when it didnt, he thought it meant that the computer was more far-sighted than it actually was.
- hasenj 14y ago> Of course top chess players recognize obviously bad moves. I'm not talking about obviously bad moves. I'm not trying to imply that Kasparov is a bad player either. But why did he conclude the computer has seen a very complicated sequence that Kasparov himself can't even begin to see? It's because of the nature of the game. Remember, we're talking about a completely random move here ..
- schme 14y agoSo what you're saying is that, because Kasparov assumed the move was anticipated further than he could see, chess's "nature" is inferior to go, because in go–you implỵ–this wouldn't have happened. Please be more clear with what you're saying.
- nicholassmith 14y agoSo we can add this to the incredibly small list of "it's not a bug it's a feature" where it's actually true.
- JackpotDen 14y agoThere's an idea that richard garfield likes to bring up, which is that if a player plays random moves, they have a chance (a very small chance) of beating a grandmaster. I wonder what would happen if you interjected very occasional random moves on purpose to extremely advanced chess AI. How often would it make a top player second guess themselves?
- mcherm 14y agoEssentially never, if the top player knew it was a possibility.
- squirrel 14y agoThe game itself, replayable online: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070912 http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070912
- Tipzntrix 14y agoMan, Kasparov has been salty about that loss for decades. This is probably the tenth article I've read about it. An interesting new theory though.
- derekp7 14y agoThis story reminds me of an episode of the American TV show "Cheers", where the bar tender (Sam) was playing against an experienced player. However, since he wan't good at chess, he was cheating by having a computer play his moves, and having someone in another room give him directions over an earpiece. Inevitably, the computer crashed (or the earpiece failed, can't remember which), so he made a random move. This threw off his opponent, who over-analysed the situation, and ended up losing. Now I'm wondering, which happened first -- that TV show episode, or the Kasparov game?
- philodespotos 14y agoCheers ended in 1993. The first Kasparov v. Deep Blue match was in 1996.
- wslh 14y agoI just sent a LinkedIn InMail to Kasparov (0 connections on LinkedIn) trying to gain attention of this thread.
- gxs 14y agoThis reminds me of when veteran professional poker players play complete novices. They often say that beating a brand new player is harder than beating a mediocre player, since a novice player will do things that make no sense seemingly randomly.
- rograndom 14y agoOr they try to do things that work in their "normal" games: bet sizing, giving off false tells, etc. that just go right over the head of the novice player. There's a quote from probably Doyle Brunson or Amarillo Slim along the lines of "It's like trying to show a dog a magic trick"