How to become a master at chess and just about any other game

[gary]

In an article at the IEEE Spectrum web site (https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/mb), Philip E. Ross reports
on a paper published today (http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140) in Science by David Silver et. al. of
DeepMind in London on their software program called AlphaZero.

As reported earlier, AlphaZero trained itself, without human intervention &
in a matter of hours, how to to play Go, chess & shogi sufficiently well to be
able to beat other champion programs of those games.



Now the DeepMind Researchers claim that the generalisations behind
the neural network algorithms in AlphaZero should make it capable of
mastering a wider variety of games, including multiplayer games.



Article here :-
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/robotics/artificial-intelligence/mb

Science paper "A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go through self-play" by Silver et. al. here :-
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1140

Background paper published at the same time in Science, "Mastering board games" by Murray Campbell :-
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1118

Background paper in Science published today, "Chess, a Drosophila of reasoning" by Garry Kasparov :- http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6419/1087

[multiweb]

AlphaZero... sounds like a military project. :lol: Do I smell applications behind game theory?

[gary]

Hi Marc,

The company behind it, DeepMind, is a subsidiary of Google.

As you may be aware, in game theory, chess is not a game.
That's because, like noughts and crosses, there really exists out there
a well ordered set of moves that should always result in a win or draw.

The seminal 1944 book, "Theory of Games and Economic Behavior"
by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, is filled with heavy
mathematical equations but there is a chapter entitled "Poker and Bluffing". :lol:

In game theory, poker is defined as a "game" but chess is not.

Nevertheless, the genius of Von Neumann was to prove that even for
"true" games like poker there exists best strategies.

During the late Cold War in the 1940's and 50's, much of Von Neumann's
life was arguably frittered away consulting to US government think tanks
such as the RAND Corporation on the application of game theory to
strategic nuclear war planning.

These days, game theory is more famously applied to predicting the stock
market.

It will be interesting to watch how AlphaZero evolves to handle games of the game theory
type that have incomplete information and where opponents use tactics such as bluffing.

Google will probably want to use it to predict what you want to buy even before you have thought about it. :)

[AstralTraveller]

And here is AlphaZero crushing Stockfish.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcdpgn9OINs


Follow links on the site to see other AlphaZero games.


Obviously there is much more to developing this AI than just winning a game, noble as that is. However it is also affecting chess. For one thing all important games are now analyised in real time by a chess engine which evaluates who is in the better position (and, I presume, suggests the next move). Clearly the players should be unaware of all this but of course the motivation to get a little bit of assistance is pretty great. There have already been (farcical) accusations along these lines but real cases will surely occur. I also wonder about classical chess where the day's play finishes after 40 moves. What is to stop players (and seconds) from spending he night analyzing the position on a computer? Players have always had help overnight but having AlphaZero takes this to a new level.


It also changes, for the better or worse depending on your perspective, the audience's experience. On one hand the duffer players now know who is in the best position but on the other they no longer have to think hard about who they believe is in the better position.



Finally, it is affecting how the game is played. For one thing, it must improve opening theory. However it may not improve games. The presenter on the site I referenced above feels that players are playing very strong, machine-like moves for about 12-15 moves and then, once they have passed the moves they have memorised, the standard drops. It may not be because the players are any weaker than in the past so much as they more or less have to turn on their brain part way through the match, rather than being deeply involved from the start. Sort of like picking up a job that someone else has started.


Anyway, the genie is out of the bottle and we'll just have to see what eventuates.

[gary]

Hi David,

Thanks for the post, the link and the interesting background as to
how these chess playing programs are affecting chess tournaments.

In the April 1975 edition of Scientific American, Martin Gardner in the
"Mathematical Games and Puzzles" section authored an April Fool's
spoof entitled "Six sensational discoveries that somehow or another
have escaped public attention".

One of these gems was the announcement that there was now a computer
proof that if white opened with "pawn to king's rook 4" that it would
result in a win for white "with a high degree of probability."

Despite the fact the same article included a claim that Leonardo da Vinci
had invented the valve flush toilet, complete with a drawing in the style
of Leonardo of a renaissance man sitting on the can, the fact that it
was an April Fools joke was lost to many readers and some chess
aficionados were aghast that their centuries-old game was now
hardly worth playing. :lol:

And the real salt in the wound was that, as I understand it,
"pawn to king's rook 4" had never been regarded as a particularly strong
opening move. :lol:

Nevertheless, the prospect of such as spectacular revelation one day being
announced has always stuck in my mind.

Just as when we are young, most of us quickly learn that "if I start here"
in noughts and crosses, "nothing you can do will not result in a win
or at least a draw for me", I've wondered at the prospect that one day,
even though it is exceedingly unlikely, that a deep computer analysis
dropped a bombshell much akin to Martin Garner's April Fools joke,
that is, "if I open with this particular move" and then continue with a
precisely computable set of counter moves, I will always win.

It certainly would break the hearts of a lot of people. :sadeyes:

Chess would be regulated to this "simple game" like noughts and crosses
suitable only for young children. Tournaments would cease. Chess board
and chess book sales would all but halt.

Grand masters would hide behind dark glasses, move to Vegas and
turn their hands to Texas hold'em instead! :lol: