Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Computers & chess ethics
From: pmbarlow@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu (The Candy Guru)
Date: 21 Jul 92 18:07:37 -0500
Organization: Miami University Academic Computer Service"

[Tim Smith]
It's illegal for humans to take notes. I wonder how well all the chess
programs would fare if they had to abide by the same rules!

[Howard Wachtel]
I think Tim makes a good point here.  Computers playing against
humans in tournaments aren't really abiding by the same rules.

[Steven J. Edwards]
To the contrary, chessplaying programs in USCF tournaments do abide by
the same rules as humans.  Anyone with a different opinion is welcome
to point out the section in the rules where programs are treated
differently from humans.

[Howard Wachtel]
Not true at all.  Try Section I.17 _The Conduct of the Players_,
section A, parts 1, 2 and 7.  The computer is not held strictly to
those rules as is the human player, hence my suggestion to give
the same privileges to the human playing against the computer.

[Steven J. Edwards]
These rules are in the same spirit as those for blind and otherwise
challenged individuals.  I guess that means you don't like to play
against them either.

[Howard Wachtel]
That is one heck of a leap of reasoning.


I agree.  There's no real comparison between blind players and computers. 
Computers can assess the value of each pieces position as they KNOW it to be. 
Blind players can only do so based upon where they THINK each piece is.  Blind
players are also human players... they're as liable to forget a position under
pressure as any of us are liable to forget anything else.  Computers, by and
large, don't forget unless you turn their power off.

Also, you can argue the spirit of the rules until your monitor goes blue.  Mine
already is, so I don't have to argue much.  But there's just no saying what the
rules were intended to say, mean, or do.  Each person is going to interpret
them differently.


[Howard Wachtel]
I don't think you understood which rules I was referring to--take
another look at the rulebook.  (I'm not talking about the special
rules for computers.)  There's nothing wrong with having special rules
for blind players.  The analogy is faulty--a computer is not a
"challenged individual"--it's not an individual at all, and that's
my point!  Although there are special rules for blind players, they
must still adhere to the rules which I referred to above.


To save time, the net meaning of the 3 rules is that players can use neither
notes nor computers as aides during a game in progress.  Howard's point, as I
understand it, is that computers CAN use a form of notes in that they can store
a completed game to memory, and if the computer lost that particular game, it
can make a change in its play so that the result is hopefully better, should
the position in that game come up again at a later point in time.  Humans do
not have an extremely good long term conscious memory... in fact, it's rather
poor.  A computer's long term memory is as good as the floppy disk that it's
stored on.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Certainly, nearly all competitive programs play legal chess.  I would
estimate that my program, because of extensive testing, has made more
moves last year than the total of the entire planet's human
chessplaying population.  [....]

[Howard Wachtel]
Which is really too bad.  After all, the game was designed to
be played by people, not machines.

[Steven J. Edwards]
And the ocean was meant only for fish, so we should get rid of ships.
And the sky was meant only for birds, so we should get rid of
aircraft. {...}

[Howard Wachtel]
No, we should get rid of stupid analogies.  Neither of the
antecedents of the above statements is true, but ignoring that for
the time being, I am not suggesting that we get rid of computers!!
I am suggesting that the human opponent of the computer be allowed
to play by correspondence rules, as long as the computer is doing so.
(S)he should also be allowed to have someone else keep score and
punch the clock for him/her, as long as the computer does so (as
is the case with the opponent of a blind player).


As to the latter, that may already be the case... 

As to the former, I think maybe computers will be banned completely before
organisers allow a situation like that to occur.  Given, I can't stand to lose
to a human, much less to a little grey box, so I don't allow computers to play
in my tournaments, so that's already happened in my case.

As to the extreme former, Howard's right.  Neither of the two antecedents is
true, and the analogies are EXTREMELY funny.


[Steven J. Edwards]
There is no real difference between a program's internal model of a
chessboard and that of a human's.  The first is made mostly from
silicon components while the latter uses carbon.  Neither is made from
tiny wooden pieces on a microscopic board.

[Howard Wachtel]
What?  Are you comparing computer hardware to the biological entities
that constitute the human brain?  We're not talking about the same thing
here.  The computer playing against a human player has an unfair advantage
because it can refer to an opening book during play, and can analyze the
game on a separate board, while the human does not have those privileges.
This is an ethical issue, not one of physics or physiology.

[Steven J. Edwards]
If you think that there is an internal board in my chessplaying
program, you are welcome to point it out to the rest of us.  There
isn't even a direct electronic analog of a board and pieces; my
program, as do several others' programs, uses a collection of numerous
bit vectors that define boolean properties.

[Howard Wachtel]
What I do think is that the computer is playing by correspondence
rules.  The above paragraph is childish and beside the point.


Plus, I'd like to point out that though a direct analog does NOT exist, that
does NOT rule out the possibility that an INdirect analog does.

And, in general, I agree with both of Howard's last two statements.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Human players can refer to their own memory during play for the
opening and for other stages of play.  If this were false, why do
strong players spend so much effort on opening preperation?  If this
were false, why do human players purchase so many chess books, none of
which can be accessed during play?

[Howard Wachtel]
The statement is not false at all--the problem is that we are using
the same word "memory" to refer to two completely different things:  the
computer's RAM and the human mind.  Humans forget; humans blunder; the
computer does not.  The computer "referring" to its memory is not
analogous to a human recalling from his/her memory--it is analogous to
looking it up in a book or some other infallible source.


I'd point out here that a computer referring to its RAM and a human referring
to his/her memory is analogous, but its a false analogy, because, as Howard and
I both have pointed out, humans forget.  Computers don't forget until you turn
their power off... and even then, the magic of floppy disks minimises the
overall effects.


[Howard Wachtel]
I don't think this issue should be allowed to die.  No human being has
a perfect memory.  Computers are in essence playing over-the-board
using correspondence chess rules (by using an opening book, analyzing
on a separate board).  I think we ought to have a level playing field--a
human forced to play against a computer in a tournament game should have
the same privileges that the machine has--playing "open-book".

[Steven J. Edwards]
Your stance is incorrect as you do not consider the great resource
that human players have with organic pattern memory built from years
of experience.  Most programs today have little, if any such memory.


Boy, oh boy, are you wrong.  Yes, humans DO have an enormous amount of organic
pattern memory, but a large amount--most of it, actually--is not consciously
accessible.  Humans do not subconsciously forget ANYTHING; modern science has
almost completely proven that.  But it will be a very long time before people
are allowed to play chess while hypnotised.

Most programs today have an incredible amount of memory on tap if the programs
are keyed correctly.  Your programs could have as such if you just wrote to
have every game played stored to some type of memory, and key in the basics to
have the computers memory build a truth-tree each time it plays... if a
variation it plays leads to loss, the computer will choose to play something
else...


[Howard Wachtel]
That sounds downright condescending.  Any stance which doesn't
agree with yours is INCORRECT!  You have not said anything to refute
my position.   Whatever "experience" the human player may have is
not nearly as great an advantage as being able to analyze by moving
the pieces on another board, as in correspondence chess.  Even very
strong players with many years of "experience" still may occasionally
make very serious blunders in complicated positions, which would
be much less likely to occur when playing by correspondence chess
rules, which is essentially what the machine is doing.

[Steven J. Edwards]
Actually, I would think that allowing a human chessplayer to fiddle
with the pieces during OTB play would hamper his/her analytic
abilities.  Moving pieces would be just a harmful crutch that would
work against the development of disciplined, analytic thought.  The
first rule a good chess teacher tells a beginning student is to obey
"touch-move".  No other single lesson helps so much to stimulate
controlled concentration.


You know, it sounds from your statement above that you don't play much OTB, 
Mr. Edwards...  you sound more like the scientist who watches the rats run the
maze than the rat who's actually doing the running.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Also, chessplaying programs are notoriously weak at correspondance
chess against humans.  Since a program could "manipulate" its putative
internal board hundreds to hundreds of thousands times faster than a
human, why is it that the program isn't helped by such manipulative
capability?

[Howard Wachtel]
It *is* helped by that capability.  But in correspondence chess,
the human player has more time, so (s)he is playing at a higher level
than (s)he would in OTB play.  It's not that the computer is weaker; it
is that the human is less likely to falter in a correspondence game.


Exactly.  The chief reason computer programmers DON'T want humans to play using
books against computers is that they already know that the human now has a
seriously defined advantage.


[Steven J. Edwards]
If you really wanted to put the players on "a level playing field"
with respect to memory, then you would force a GM to guzzle a bottle
of whiskey before each game and then solidly hit him over the head
before each move.


Side note here... I wouldn't suggest something like this.  I think my play
might IMPROVE if I was drunk and being beaten.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Also, unless the program has access to video and
audio, you would have to blindfold the GM along with stuffing his ears
with cotton.

[Howard Wachtel]
I certainly hope you're not serious.  This kind of silliness
doesn't even deserve a reply.

[Steven J. Edwards]
You miss the point.  As most machines have no long term dynamic
cognitive process, they are outclassed by even weak players when it
comes to learning from mistakes.  This is starting to change, however.

[Howard Wachtel]
You've adequately answered yourself in that last sentence.  Let
me add that truly weak players make many more mistakes and more
severe ones ("blunders" would be better) than computers.  The more
subtle or slight the error is, the harder it is to learn from it.


Again, being one of those players (the popular term is "fish", I believe) I
must agree with Howard.  If I had a nickel for every time I fucked up SERIOUSLY
during a rated game, I could go out and buy another one of the '93 Eagle Talon's
that I drive now.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Also, you overestimating the advantage of having an extensive opening
library.  There are just too many unrecorded or misrecorded opening
traps and errors, and many a computer program has lost because it
blindly followed bad human analysis.

[Howard Wachtel]
And you think that doesn't happen to human players?

[Steven J. Edwards]
Not with the degree of regularity that is demonstrated by mechanical
players.  It would take an army of human chessplayers competing for a
century to make the number of mistakes that a ever-so-slightly buggy
program can make in under a second.

[Howard Wachtel]
I can't take issue with the first sentence.  The second sentence
seems to address an issue different from the one in the earlier posting
(a buggy program vs. a good program with an imperfect opening book).


I, also, refuse to touch the first sentence.  However, it depends on who's army
you use in the second sentence to make such a statement.  If you're referring
to America's army, you may be right... who knows?


[Howard Wachtel]
I am not overestimating the importance of opening preparation.  Did
you see my posting on the Morra where I used some analysis from this
very newsgroup to snare an unsuspecting opponent?  I have been on the
other end of this as well, walking into lines prepared at home by
my opponents, and falling way behind on the clock trying to figure
my way out--something that would not happen if I had an ECO on my lap.

[Steven J. Edwards]
If your opponent knew that you blindly follow ECO, you would be easily
crushed due to the complete predictability of your play.

[Howard Wachtel]
But of course the human opponent of the computer does not know
whether the machine will follow ECO, or MCO, or BCO, or the latest
Informants, or is out of its opening book and must fend for itself.
So I don't see an advantage for the human player there.


Plus, I've never even opened up an ECO, so if I was playing Howard, and he had
his ECO on his lap, it wouldn't mean much to me.  Plus, my play leaves most
books (apparently--this is what I'm told) after 5-6 moves...


[Steven J. Edwards]
Furthermore, programs have little (if any) opening understanding and a machine
that blithely follows human analysis often finds itself (after the book
sequence ends) in an arguably "good" position that is totally
inappropriate for the search and evaluation techniques particular to
that program.  This has been a problem in chessplaying programs for
over two decades and there is no easy solution.

[Howard Wachtel]
OK, I'll take your word for it.  Would you rather have a superior
position that doesn't fit the particular evaluation techniques or
an inferior one that does?


I don't know, myself... but if I was a programmer, I bet I'd prefer the latter.


[Howard Wachtel]
For chess purists, this issue is both important and interesting.  We
must not allow the machine to take the royal game away from us.

[Steven J. Edwards]
You presume greatly if you think that all "chess purists" share such a
paranoid fear of dispossesion.

[Howard Wachtel]
PARANOID???  What do you think is going on right now?   Strong
playing chess computers have already nearly destroyed correspondence
chess, except perhaps at the highest levels.  Tournament chess is
also slowly becoming an endangered species--as I pointed out in an
earlier posting, nearly 3 out of 4 "tournaments" involve sudden
death time controls--changing from normal chess to speed chess in
the middle of the game, say at move 40.  Time controls are getting
faster and faster.  If current trends continue, 100 years from now
there may be no competitive chess left which is slower than, say,
game in 60 minutes.   This is not paranoia.  This is reality.

[Steven J. Edwards]
For those that enjoy correspondance chess, there is really no need for
a big prize fund.  Therefore, small-prize or no-prize tournaments
would strongly discourage users of expensive computers.  Even the big
names among the chessplaying programs are crushed by humans in
correspondance.

[Howard Wachtel]
I haven't played postal chess for decades, so I don't know whether
postal tournaments have large prize funds nowadays or whether
postalites would be discouraged by a lack of prize money.  Perhaps
some current postal players would care to comment on that issue.
As for the last sentence in the above, see my earlier comment on
humans in postal play.


For what its worth, 1st prize in this years Golden Knights is worth $1,000.


[Steven J. Edwards]
Your second point about time controls has nothing to do with
chessplaying programs, but your mentioning it does further shed light
on your paranoid symptoms.

[Howard Wachtel]
PARANOID SYMPTOMS, MY ASS!  Get your head out of your computer
laboratory and look at the changes in tournament chess in the
last 20 years.  It has _everything_ to do with chessplaying programs.
Here is a portion of another posting from Ben Lin, to illustrate:

[Benjamin Lin]
What about SD?  I used to be against sudden death, but with all the
computers now available for use during adjournments, I think it is
inevitable.

[Howard Wachtel]
The problem is that too many organizers are taking that point of
view--that adjournments must be done away with beacuse computers
which the players may have access to are becoming so strong that
they may unfairly influence the outcome of the game.  Hence, the
increased use of SD time controls to avoid adjournments altogether.
I am against SD time controls, and feel that players must not be
permitted to use computers during adjournments.  Yes, my friends,
if current trends continue, we may be witnessing the slow death
of what I call "tournament chess" (SD advocates call it "slow chess").


I qualify my use of SD in my tournaments.  Yes, it's because I don't want
adjournments.  No, it's not because I don't want players analysing on computers
during the adjournemnts.  It's more because I simply don't like to adjourn
games.


[Steven J. Edwards]
If you don't want to take a chance of playing against a machine, then
only enter NC (No Computers allowed) tournaments.  After all, they
outnumber the C (Computers allowed) tournaments by at least five to
one.  Even when you enter a C tournament, you still have the option of
stating a preference not to play a program.  Furthermore, there are
only a dozen or so active USCF programs in the whole country, so being
paired against one is relatively infrequent anyway.

[Howard Wachtel]
Not in Illinois.  Many tournaments I have played in have had a
computer playing in the same section as I.  In last year's state
championship, the reigning state champion was dethroned by a computer!
This is not the way to determine who has the right to hold a
state title, much less a national one.

[Steven J. Edwards]
Talk with the local TOs and TDs.  State your preference not to be
paired against a machine.  Be your own tournament organizer.  Enter NC
tournaments to encourage their continuance.  Oh, and if you're not the
dethroned champ mentioned above, your opinion on his/her defeat is
simply not germane.

[Howard Wachtel]
YES IT IS!!  The dethroned champ is a GRANDMASTER and could
whip all of us with half his brain tied behind his back.
Yes I am a tournament organizer--so what?  I'm not
going to skip the U.S. Open or National Open or even my state
championship because the organizers allow computers to play for
publicity purposes.  I would appreciate if those who make the rules
would allow the human opponent of the computer to have the same
privileges that the computer has (correspondence rules), although
I admit that this is unlikely to occur.  Yes, I do sign the "prefer
not to play against a computer" list, but that doesn't apply to
the _first_ round pairings which are made before I show up.


Which is too bad, really... you should put in your advance registration, if you
can, that you don't want to face a computer, even in the first round.

And I must say, you're probably right about the organisers allowing that to
happen...


[Howard Wachtel]
{...General discussion of the development of computer chess,
complaints about discourteous players, and supporting computers to
publicize the game...}
What really upsets me is that you chess computer developers are
only interested in what makes money for you--you cannot seem to or do
not want to deal with ethical issues of right and wrong.  Another
chess computer developer writes in a later posting:

"We all want computers to think someday..."

NO WE DON'T!  _YOU_ want that to happen.  If computers could think
to the same degree that humans do, they could, for example, commit
murder (as in the movie "2001").  Of course I'm not worried about
that happening in the forseeable future.  I _am_ worried about the
possible disappearance of tournament chess and its replacement by
"Action Chess" or the like.


What should upset you even more is that chess computer developers refuse to see
things from the exact opposite point of view.  And what should upset you
further is that this will never change.


********************************************************************************
*    The Candy Guru                     "See, how it works is:                 *
*    pmbarlow@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu      the train moves, not the station."    *
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