Re: [Bug-gnubg] Neural network symmetry question

[Ian Shaw]

Øystein Schønning-Johansen wrote:
Sent: 12 December 2011 20:59

So, we don't care about the exactness of the absolute evaluation, we care about the relative evaluation between the moves (or resulting positions after each move). That is what makes it select good moves!

 

 

This strategy was originally adopted by Tesauro. I agree that it is fine for chequerplay, where you only have to find the best play relative to the alternatives.

 

However, for cube decisions it is important to know the absolute equity. It is known that gnubg is inaccurate in some areas, most notably holding-game cube action, where gnubg overestimates the holding player’s chances. I wonder if this is due to only training for relative move selection.

 

It might be worth devising a training regime that trains for absolute equity. This ought to give good chequerplay, too, since if the nn can accurately determine the absolute value of each position it will inevitably rank candidates correctly, too.

 

n  Ian