[ExI] alpha zero

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
Subject: Re: [ExI] alpha zero

 

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark

 

​>>>​…I still haven’t convinced myself it is true.

 

 

​

 

>>…If this is a hoax it's a very elaborate one the likes of which we haven't seen since the cold fusion fiasco. ​

…John K Clark ​

 

 

 

>…Ja I could have clarified my doubt a bit.  I don’t suspect an intentional hoax, rather something they neglected to tell us…spike

 

 

Further clarification, since I want to make very clear I am not accusing the Alpha Zero guys of hoaxing us, nor am I accusing ChessNews of intentionally misleading reporting. 

 

The analogy is more like this: consider a time when something big happened and you were there, then the newspaper reported it.  You read the story as written and say oooooh no, that isn’t what happened there at all.  You read the facts, which are all correct as written, but it paints a very different story than what really took place.  The reporters weren’t there, they talked to some people, wrote it up the best they could, but it just wasn’t right.  

 

I suspect what we are seeing here is unintentionally misleading reporting, where there are some key aspects missing or accidentally reported incorrectly.  For instance, if the company somehow came into possession of a million nodes computing in parallel for a day, then collected the results.  The story was written by a chess guy who may or may not understand all the technical details.  

 

I think Alpha Zero is impressive as all hell, but I ha’ me doots they somehow managed to get this much better than Stockfish in a day.  As written, I am confident there is something wrong or accidentally misleading, probably the use of massively parallel computing resources, or the use of a some known-good standard chess engine which was parameter-modified by the results of a massive-parallel effort.  Dunno.  Something is missing here.  Or accidentally overstated.

 

This is a heady trip for those of us into computer chess, for a good computer chess program teaches to play better chess ourselves.  As we program computers, computers program us.  

 

I welcome a detailed technical paper by the Alpha Zero people, then we compare the ChessNews article with the Alpha Zero paper.

 

spike

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