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Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

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Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#91

Post by Quarrelsome »

ndand wrote: post #28
Quarrelsome wrote: post #20

I believe its very much the arbitrary numbers we gave to pieces that we coded into our brute forced chess AIs that has allowed new chess AIs to be better. As this article hinted, its understanding of piece value fluctuates based on the rules of the game but also as the game changes. Alpha Zero makes sacrifices human players wouldn't because they're too wedded to the idea that a queen is 9, a rook is 5 and a knight/bi…

Stockfish evaluates the position of the entire board, e.g. mobility of pieces, how much opposing space they control, etc. But still, the evaluation function is hardcoded and weaker than AlphaZero. Recently Stockfish introduced neural network evaluation. https://blog.stockfishchess.org/post/625828091343896577/intr...

By that I just mean Alpha Go is assuming less about board state than StockFish and other conventional chess AIs do. Evidently the two engines have different assessments which is why Stockfish will greedily lap up a sacrifice by Alpha Zero onto to then lose because of it.

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#92

Post by bjourne »

me_me_me wrote: post #53
dh5 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that chess is a "close to solved game" in human OTB play in particular. Top GMs currently will probably score 0/12 against Leela/Stockfish. We see innovations frequently in recent years as we learn from engines themselves, h4/h5 pushes as a simple example, but also in terms of style like favoring rapid development and attacking play. Yes, draws are frequent but that doesn't mean…

> I strongly disagree with the assertion that chess is a "close to solved game" in human OTB play in particular. I meant 90min +30mins classical format. It really is stale and boring to watch. And it seems like its mainly a memory game with some meta counter preparations pre-tournament. Where you develop and memorize lines to counter your opponent. That's what I meant by "close to solved game" - as both players are a…

Agreed. Also seem to be not enough incentive to win games. E.g. if Magnus Carlsen thinks he can probably win, he'd settle for a draw if that is the safer alternative. Perhaps it could be changed so that wins count for three points and draws only one. No idea if that would encourage players to become more aggressive.

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#93

Post by SubiculumCode »

I did't like the article in the sense that AI hasn't ruined chess. Its more popular than ever, but the focus has moved to shorter time controls...which can be quite exciting to watch. I watch chess tournaments on twitch.tv with two grand masters commentating...and honestly, its like watching a godly hockey match.

That said, I'd like to see some of these variations get implemented on chess.com. A lot of the variations (aside from 960) are a bit silly feeling (e.g. a variation where when you take a piece, all pieces within a 1 square radius get blown to smithereens).

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#94

Post by aidenn0 »

david927 wrote: post #76
sasaf5 wrote: post #40

A summary to undo the clickbait: AI is making chess beautiful by making it easy to check how new rules affect playability. Rule changes suggested in the article are: - No castling - Allowing self capture - Pawns can move sideways - Pawns can move 2 squares at a time

The rare occasions that I played against my wife and tried to castle, she rejected it outright with, "No fancy moves!"

When I first performed an en passant against my sister she refused to play chess with me for weeks saying I was cheating.

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#95

Post by grraaaaahhh »

klmadfejno wrote: post #75
throwaway49990 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Magic: the Gathering. >I remember reading somewhere that languages like Finnish and Hungarian are difficult for computers to parse I wonder how much of that is due to AI researchers being speakers of Indo-European languages and not being able to wrap their mind around languages outside that family

Hmm, that's going to be a maybe. If the AI needs to interpret the rules of a card based on it's text and figure out how to use them, it would indeed be a very difficult challenge. If the AI can simply learn how to play the game with a predefined deck, it'll probably do just fine, outperforming humans but not all the time due to random chance.

I think you'd have to go even narrower by predefined the AI's opponent's deck as well before you'd get an AI that consistently outperformed humans. Even the most all in combo or burn deck will drop lose percentage points if they don't take into account what they're playing against and what hate cards to play around.

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#96

Post by aidenn0 »

erfgh wrote: post #59
exDM69 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the answer you're looking for, but motor racing and simulations of it. Sounds counter intuitive, but despite doing fast laps when on the circuit alone, even the best AI racers have difficulty surviving a race distance in close pack racing without crashing. Roborace, the autonomous racing league in development has barely managed to put two cars on track and doing an overtake safely. A lot of money and state of the…

Wait, I thought autonomous cars are almost out. You ruined my excitement.

Autonomous cars can solve the problem of close-pack driving by avoiding close-packs. That's a great way to lose a race though...

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#97

Post by aidenn0 »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #84
User23 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know much bridge so please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that “cheating” basically applying steganography to game moves? It’s not like touching your ear at the right time or some other kind of back channel. It’s all represented by game moves. That sounds tractable for an algorithm.

Well yes, that and actual cheating (the competitive scene if rife with cheating of all kinds). If AI teammates were allowed to have a pre-developed, shared model between them for communication so the other automatically "knows" what the others moves mean then it would be closer to fair grounds but that's considered cheating even though human teammates do the same thing.

I haven't been in the contract-bridge scene in a long time, but had a friend who was competitive at the regional-level, and the impression I got was that partner-signalling was hard to get away with just because opponents would recognize abnormal results so quickly; at that level you would regularly face opponents who could tell you every contract you had bid against them and what the result was from memory.

On the other hand, I worked at a US Team Trials championship game, and the two tables were in separate rooms, with a diagonal partition across the table and completely silent bidding. Presumably they wouldn't go through such gymnastics if cheating weren't a concern. Perhaps the stakes are too low at the regional level (or those who are good enough to get away with it quickly progress to a higher level?).

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#98

Post by wrsh07 »

awb wrote: post #87
sasaf5 wrote: post #40

A summary to undo the clickbait: AI is making chess beautiful by making it easy to check how new rules affect playability. Rule changes suggested in the article are: - No castling - Allowing self capture - Pawns can move sideways - Pawns can move 2 squares at a time

Even if a new game mode is found to enhance gameplay, AI would master these variations quickly reducing the novelty of them. The best attempt I've seen is Fisher random chess which attempts to create so many unique starting positions that memorizing openings becomes impossible. It ends up leading to really unique situations, and in some cases even a first move advantage for black.

I don't think the point is to make something hard for computers; rather, the goal is to make high level human chess matches more interesting

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#99

Post by FireBeyond »

sasaf5 wrote: post #40

A summary to undo the clickbait: AI is making chess beautiful by making it easy to check how new rules affect playability. Rule changes suggested in the article are: - No castling - Allowing self capture - Pawns can move sideways - Pawns can move 2 squares at a time

I think that's a bit harsh, there's more to the article than that - chess players talking about seeing the computer evolve techniques that have been discovered over hundreds of years of chess, for but one.

Re: Exploring new forms of chess using artificial intelligence

#100

Post by cybwraith »

dhairya wrote: post #86

Lichess has great variants to play. If you haven't tried crazyhorse or multi-player version bughouse, highly recommend it. In crazyhorse you can put captured enemy anywhere on the board as your own piece. Likewise in bughouse, you play with a partner (where you are opposite colors) against another team. You each play your own game against the opponent but each opponent piece you capture you can give to your partner t…

Also, if you really want to dive into the crazyhouse idea you can try learning Shogi which is effectively the Japanese version of western chess and has the drop rule and interesting promotion mechanics.
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