[extropy-chat] chess and lizards

[The Avantguardian]

--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:

> > bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Eliezer S.
> Yudkowsky
> > Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Bluff and the Darwin
> award
> > 
> > Russell, your argument also proves that Deep
> Blue's programmers can't
> > make changes to Deep Blue that improve its playing
> ability without
> > actually testing it in many games against
> Kasparov.  One game can't
> > possibly be enough to distinguish between
> potential changes because the
> > win or loss only provides one bit of
> information...
> > --
> > Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          ...
> 
> 
> Why against Kasparov?  Rather than against the
> previous version of itself,
> playing 24/7 and keeping score?  Aside, Kasparov may
> have been the strongest
> human chess player but was shown repeatedly to not
> be the strongest human in
> games against computers, possibly not even in the
> top 5.

Spike :)
What you refer to is called a genetic algorithm or a
variant Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Both are
recursive self-improving algorithms based on darwinian
selection or more generally the concept of empiricism
which Eliezer is contending is unnecessary at least in
regards to the very large but finite state-space of
chess.

 He seems to insist that a "superintelligence" would
be able to win against a human chess grandmaster by
simply "solving" the game analytically. But Eliezer
could your imaginary Superintelligence beat Wonder
Woman? 

Russell on the other hand insists that such is not
possible due to some not quite rigorously proven
corollary of Godel's Theorem which essentially says
that creativity cannot be analytically derived. It is
a really interesting debate and they are neck to neck
in my opinion.
> 
> Whole nuther unrelated question please Eli.  In your
> summit talk you made a
> reference to politicians not being lizards.  The
> audience made an unexpected
> reaction, mirth or surprise.  You looked around as
> if to say whaaaat?  This
> was my reaction too: whaaaat?
> 
> Hipsters, does the term "lizard" have some new
> meaning other than the
> reptile, some political meaning?

Yes, Spike, there is a British pseudo-celebrity named
David Icke who was once a world famous soccer champion
but is now trying his hand at politics on the platform
that the world's most powerful politicians are really
a conspiracy of reptillian aliens in human disguise. I
don't even dignify his theory by keeping up with his
antics but amazingly he has sold quite a few books on
the subject. Kudos BTW to Eliezer for keeping abreast
of fringe-nutter politics. Sorry no one else got your
reference. :)



Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school... It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don't understand it. You see my physics students don't understand it... That is because I don't understand it. Nobody does." - Richard Feynman on QM

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