From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Sun Apr 08 2001 - 00:53:46 MDT
> Spike Jones wrote:
> >
> > Furthermore, much of the improvement was *strictly* because
> > of faster hardware, displaying many humanlike "insights". After
> > watching this, Ive become convinced that there is nothing
> > magic going on inside a meat computer. spike
Brian Atkins wrote:
> Well I wouldn't bet the farm based on that. Chess is strictly a "mechanical"
> game where there is a finite set of moves that can be pretty easily "graded"
> so the machine can pick out what's the best sequence of moves to make. The
> chess playing software we have today is not "thinking", it is simply an over-
> grown calculator.
Agreed, but the great insight that was gained by the chess world
is that our beloved game *could be* performed by an overgrown
calculator. At the end of the day, I suspect that nearly everything
humans and animals do can be performed by a calculator, once
we know how it is done. We didn't really *know* chess was a
"mechanical" game until it was demonstrated to be so. In fact most
players argued that it could not be done that way, until those same
players stood around the machine making comments such as:
"Well, Ill be damned." spike
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