still- the non-addressing of an improved AI without bonuses remains.
Strange. considering chess programs, which have been around since computers started, had levels of difficulty 20 years ago that did not involve giving the computer an extra Pawn, or even the first move.
I suspect that there may be an issue of not making the AI to good.
In such a case the AI advantages via bonus may be the only way they could make it stronger yet still beatable.
Troy,
You may not realize this, but chess AI was pretty terrible in the beginning also. Indeed, building chess computers became a major focus for computer programmers for years and years. I hope you enjoy this story.
The 'big era' of early chess AI started in 1968 (I think, it was along time ago) when Master David Levy made a bet with the programming world that no chess computer would beat him in 10 years. He was a 2300ish type player, not a great player by chess player standards (of course, he could clobber me easily) but FAR FAR from Petrosian, Spassky, or Fischer.
The computer programmers scoffed, saying that Levy was arrogant. Of course, they are the ones who proved to be arrogant. I was an 1800ish player, and I remember going to tournaments in the early days of computers, talking to programmers. I remember talking to some of the leads in 1975, and they admitted that 'oh, chess is a lot harder than we thought.'
To catch up, they started to 'cheat'. The programmers gave up on having their computers 'calculate' the opening, they started to type The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO) directly into the code. Originally, they claimed they didn't need to do this but learned better.
Well, 1978 came and went, and the best computers were about my strength, 1800ish or so. Remember, these were played on mainframes, we aren't even talking about PC's.
My chessplaying brethren and I had a good time on this -- yes, people do underestimate how good the REAL chess players are. They can't beat Levy, how could they even CONSIDER beating Karpov?
I remember going to an AI convention for work in 1986 or 1987 (by the way, this was REAL AI, not game AI. This was the era that AI applications were considered a promising technology, which for the most part hasn't proven out.) By now, the computers of course had well passed me, and even Levy, but again the programmers learned something -- going from 1800 - 2300 is a LOT easier than going from 2300 to the Karpov/Kasparov level.
I was shocked when the keynote speaker said, 'The most important development for the advancement of the application of AI programming in the general public would be to produce a computer that can beat Garry Kasparov at chess.' Talk about priorities!
Well, then chess AI got a boost that no game ever had or probably ever will get. $$! IBM started to work big time on building efficient chess computers. I suspect that this was largely done at IBM to try to advance the art of programming and applications of computers, but the resources spent on building chess computers now entered a frenzied stage. And was some of it for the pride of the computer?
Chess players like me always knew that computers would pass my chess heroes, but they put up a really good fight. By the mid-90's, the computers were doing hundreds of thousands of calculations/second. By this time, the programmers got smart, and hired real chess GM's to review their games and see if they could improve the AI (note that this isn't cheap either. )
By the mid 90's, the computers were real good. Again, I talked to the programmers who now had GM's at their side. They knew they could beat any player in the world -- at that point, except Kasparov! Now, the programmers had learned how kick ass the best chess players were.
And of course, now programs like Hydra can beat most GM's spotting them a pawn.
My point here is that it is unfair to compare the AI of chess to a commercial game. The resources spent on developing chess AI are far greater than any PC game can ever spend. As others have pointed out, chess is a game well made for a computer's calculations. Your version of Fritz or the Chessmaster also have the advantage of programming going back in a large way to 1968, hundreds if not thousands of people at some point working on development, the typing in of ECO and similar texts, and millions upon millions of dollars. I suspect if Firaxis had those resources, it could build some REALLY good AI.
So don't expect that kind of skill from any game you buy!
Best wishes,
Breunor
PS I see others have talked about Deep Blue's budget. Sorry for repeating this! But the money spent on chess AI is even far greater than even Deep Blue's budget since this was built on years of other programming!
). Considering that most players would become frustrated if each AI spent copious amounts of time thinking about its moves (before doing something dumb), it seems that the most viable option available to the programmer is to simply script the AI's behaviour, which is what has been done. Perhaps the programmers can prevent the AI from doing some of the obviously dumb things that it does at the moment by adding to the script. However, a script is never going to match an intelligent, adaptive, human thought process, so as long as games like cIV are limited to such methods, I don't foresee any dramatic improvement in the AI. Incidentally, there is an example of a Checkers program called Blondie that uses neural networks to teach itself to play, but it is very weak compared to programs that apply conventional methods. If a computer can't play a computationally simple game like Checkers smart, what chance would it have with a game like cIV?
