Re: [gnugo-devel] endgame module for GNU Go

[Eric]

--- Paul Pogonyshev <address@hidden> wrote:

> Eric wrote:
> 
> > --- Paul Pogonyshev <address@hidden> wrote:
> > 
> > > * I don't think it is worth the inconvenience of
> > > plugging in a planner into GNU Go.
> > 
> > Yea, unless it makes GNU Go useful for something
> > besides your own personal entertainment.
> 
> GNU Go is meant to be "useful" in terms of playing
> Go.
> It can be used for research (or do you mean any else
> use?), but that's not something "common" GNU Go
> users
> are interested in.

Okay Paul, please allow me to be more blunt. I have
absolutely no interest in making GNU Go "stronger". My
aim is to make GNU Go "work".

By "work", what I mean is that I want a champion,
human Go player to value and enjoy playing GNU Go, and
not just have it as a curiosity for novices.

As an artificial intelligence engineer, I am sickened
by the many articles that have been written which make
the claim that computers will never be able to play a
decent game of Go. And I aim to put a stop to them.

Also, Deep Blue (or Big Blue, or whatever is the name
of it) didn't help the reputation of AI either by
massively storing and doing look-up of all the chess
moves, and then calling it an AI approach. Because
it's not. Procedural programming is not AI. They will
never be able to try that trick with the game of Go.
There are way more possibilities than in chess.

Similarly, GNU Go will never conquer the game of Go by
relying exclusively on a procedural, pattern matching
approach. It's a nice start, and it is impressive how
far you folks have gotten with it. But it aint gonna
get the job done.

So, with that being said, I hope you can forgive my
loss of patience. I have a lot of work to do, and I
came to this list for technical advice. Instead, I get
hung up with all this logistical chit chat about FSF.
Anyone who has ever taken an Introduction to Computer
Science course knows how FSF works. It is not new.

> > > Most users would not even know what a planner
> was
> > > and that GNU Go had a use for one.
> > 
> > Duh. That's the whole purpose of the effort.
> Nobody
> > knew what personal computers were useful for
> either,
> > until Bill Gates starting building them.
> 
> I didn't make any sense out of the second statement.
> Did Microsoft already claimed that it was Bill Gates
> who invented computer or what?

Bill Gates wanted to build a computer that
non-programmers could use. Everybody gave him hell,
because it was so counter-intuitive. They didn't
understand what use someone who couldn't program a
computer would possibly have for one.

All of a sudden, everybody understands now.

Best regards,

Eric