Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Player of Games

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 242 posts

Re: Player of Games

#21

Post by hoseja »

7thaccount wrote: post #13
hoseja wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda ironic since in the novel, a human player is better than the strong AI (albeit a little inexplicably).

I thought the protagonist wasn't nearly as talented as the culture AIs (even the ones that are not all that powerful)?

I don't think a full Culture Mind is present but he outstrips his spacecraft's ability to help him with preparation in later stages of the competition. I clearly remember this.

Re: Player of Games

#22

Post by wly_cdgr »

wetpaws wrote: post #17
wly_cdgr wrote: post #14

The future is so depressing

Fun fact: The consensus between professional go and chess players is that all new AI systems (alphago, etc) have really revitalised the game and introduced incredible amount of new strategies and depth.

Yeah, whatever. As someone who grew up playing chess and is almost certainly much better at it than you, this future sucks

Re: Player of Games

#23

Post by _tkii »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #22
wetpaws wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: The consensus between professional go and chess players is that all new AI systems (alphago, etc) have really revitalised the game and introduced incredible amount of new strategies and depth.

Yeah, whatever. As someone who grew up playing chess and is almost certainly much better at it than you, this future sucks

Why?

Re: Player of Games

#25

Post by gremloni »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #18
sfkgtbor wrote: post #2

I really like seeing references to the Culture series when naming things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games

Allusions are fun and all, but I disagree. These are important problems that a lot of people have put their whole careers into researching. Silly names like these lack gravitas.

If anything the caliber and lore of the series gives the project an incredible amount of gravitas. Plus the scheme is just plain beautiful in my opinion.

Re: Player of Games

#26

Post by sjg1729 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #18
sfkgtbor wrote: post #2

I really like seeing references to the Culture series when naming things: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Player_of_Games

Allusions are fun and all, but I disagree. These are important problems that a lot of people have put their whole careers into researching. Silly names like these lack gravitas.

Always sad to see these projects suffer from A Shortfall of Gravitas

Re: Player of Games

#27

Post by thom »

7thaccount wrote: post #13
hoseja wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda ironic since in the novel, a human player is better than the strong AI (albeit a little inexplicably).

I thought the protagonist wasn't nearly as talented as the culture AIs (even the ones that are not all that powerful)?

Is that clear from the text? Gurgeh supposedly perceives the result of the last game before the AIs so we’re led to believe he’s seeing deeper. Obviously he could have been wrong and still won. The AIs lied to and manipulated him the entire time so it’s hard to know, but it would seem a very odd weakness for an AI to have. I think Banks pretty quickly recanted on the subject of the Culture’s ‘referrers’ but I don’t think he plays a full Mind, so it’s not a clear cut conversation.

Re: Player of Games

#28

Post by lacker »

gremloni wrote: post #25
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allusions are fun and all, but I disagree. These are important problems that a lot of people have put their whole careers into researching. Silly names like these lack gravitas.

If anything the caliber and lore of the series gives the project an incredible amount of gravitas. Plus the scheme is just plain beautiful in my opinion.

You may find this Iain Banks interview enjoyable. TLDR search for "gravitas" ;-)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/11/iainbanks-scie...

Re: Player of Games

#30

Post by wsc981 »

wly_cdgr wrote: post #22
wetpaws wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: The consensus between professional go and chess players is that all new AI systems (alphago, etc) have really revitalised the game and introduced incredible amount of new strategies and depth.

Yeah, whatever. As someone who grew up playing chess and is almost certainly much better at it than you, this future sucks

I don't understand why this is so depressing? You can still play against humans though. It's probably more fun anyways than playing versus a computer as in most games, isn't it?
Post reply on HN