3 ms·

I believe that the average elo of players is increasing since powerful chess AI / Go AI.

• SiempreViernes 4mo ago
  Was the average ELO of players approximately stable before chess engines?
• lunar_mycroft 4mo ago
  Elo is zero sum. Each point gained by one player is lost by another. It follows that the mean elo is always exactly equal to the initial elo assigned to new players before they play any games, and can't change over time. If the highest ranked player are higher elo than before, the lower ranked players must be lower elo.
  • oidar 4mo ago
    >Elo is zero sum. In a closed, static pool only.
    • lunar_mycroft 4mo ago
      Right, but you have to give the new players some rating, and as long as that number remains constant it will also be the mean Elo. Therefore, "new players entering the pool" can't cause a rise in mean Elo. As for lower rated players leaving, that could indeed raise the mean (assuming you stop counting them in the average), but that changes the point from "players have gotten better because of AI" to "worse players are more likely to just give up on chess because of AI", which is a significantly less optimistic picture IMO.
      • rrvsh 4mo ago
        What? I don't think anyone has given up on chess because of computers in my lifetime
        • lunar_mycroft 4mo ago
          I didn't say they did. What I said was that if the person I was replying to was correct that average Elo ratings had increased because of AI, the mechanism would have to be "AI makes lower ranked players give up" instead of "AI makes players better on average"