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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Before too long, some genius will perfect a working HCI (human - computer interface) this research has been advancing for several years now.
The objective is to create a hands free computer control - something like a wire into the back of your skull. To access the inernet all you need do is think it! If you want to phone someone just think their name and think 'phone'!
Eventually the computer is reached by wireless or so small it can be surgically implanted.
By trhe way I used to think (in 1970) I would never lose a chess game to a computer!
What then happens to chess tournaments?
Does the TD yank out any wires inserted into anyone's head?
Do we allow these androids to play?
If so, what does it mean?
Aaaaarghhhhh
Last edited by Vlad Dobrich; Monday, 23rd March, 2009, 04:14 PM.
I can empathize. A PowerPoint talk I give in connection with my anti-cheating website (http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/chess/fidelity/) has a slide showing the history of computer strength that includes a dark final bullet:
() 1947: Turing specifies first chess program; Botvinnik, Shannon begin work…
() 1957: Alex Bernstein (MIT) first program on 8x8 board, searched 4 ply in 8 minutes. Herbert Simon predicts world champ in 10 yrs.
() 1968: IM David Levy (~ my strength) bets John McCarthy $3000 he’ll beat any program in 10 yrs.
() 1978: Levy collects by beating Chess 4.7
() 1988: Deep Thought co-wins US Open, 2745 perf.
() 1997: Deep Blue (many cores) beats Garry Kasparov.
() 2007: Dual-core laptop with $50 program could beat GK.
() 2017: I-Pod Nano implant wired to cerebral cortex…?
Last edited by Kenneth Regan; Monday, 23rd March, 2009, 04:12 PM.
Reason: clearer wording
The article was published in 2000. The author was the chief scientific computer guy at Sun Micro Systems. At the time, the article caused quite a sensation. What he envisions, given the history, sounds reasonable. Since he wrote the article, more "progress" along the trajectory he describes has been made.
In this context, chess is rather trivial. The "inroads" by computers and software in this field, that for the longest time had been equated with human thinking and intuition, are quite astonishing. Eventually, chess will be solved, so will go, checkers has been solved.
Cheers
Peter
PS When I made my pilot liscence, only pilots wrote the flight plans. Today, literally no pilot writes a flight plan, all planned by computers.
The article was published in 2000. The author was the chief scientific computer guy at Sun Micro Systems. At the time, the article caused quite a sensation. What he envisions, given the history, sounds reasonable. Since he wrote the article, more "progress" along the trajectory he describes has been made.
Hi Peter,
They already have small computers to keep people "running". Small electronic devices run by battery with wires which are implanted. They are externally programable. Actually, heart pacemakers have been around for decades. They used to set them at a certain rate and it would maintain that heart rate for the life of the battery. One problem was when a person wanted to sleep the heart wouldn't slow down so for at least some that was a problem. The one I have is more advanced. It slows down when I go to bed and speeds up when I speed up. The more I do the faster the pulses come. Probably something to do with the respiration. It also records "events". I guess it has a RAM chip.
These days defribulators are also implanted into some people. I think they are a much more recent development than the pacemakers.
I think they are also working on brain pacemakers for epilepsy but know little about this or the progress they are making or have made.
Hard to know what will come later in this century. Someone may find stimulating the creative part of the brain improves a persons playing strength.
The solution to HCI is EMP! Electromagnetic Pulse, like in the James Bond movie Goldeneye. We can miniturize it, and everyone who wishes to play in a rated event has to pass through an EMP screen. Technology cuts both ways. It can present us with problems but also solutions.
Ray Kurzweil, mentioned in this article, is on drugs... literally. I think he takes something like 150 supplements each day, trying to suppress his own aging in the hope he lives to see the "singularity". He's desperate to live forever.
Imagine for a moment if the singularity does happen and humans are rendered capable via medicine of living forever.... as long as they don't get hit by a cement truck or drown or fall off a cliff. What kind of life would everyone live? Afraid to even venture outside... Who would do the grunt work that keeps the economy going? Everyone with dangerous blue collar jobs would quit immediately. They better have thinking robots by then!
But it's all poppycock. Never going to happen. We are not here to be immortal, and every time a promising technology comes along, it ends up against a wall of impossibility. That's the way it's meant to be. We aren't meant to have limitless non-polluting energy (cold fusion, impossible) or nanorobots that can swim through our bodies keeping us forever 30 years old, or warp speed spaceships that can take us to other star systems.
That last paragraph is my opinion and you may disagree. If so, join Ray Kurzweil in his quest for immortality. And if it does come, be prepared to live in greater fear than you've ever had in a world where mortality is something we all accept.
I do, however, believe we can have (and already do have) computers that can calculate orders of magnitude faster than the human brain. The question then becomes, can raw calculation power ever become so great that it enables "thinking" or "consciousness"? Even today's fastest, most networked supercomputers sound impressive (IBM just broke the PetaFlop barrier) until you hear about what they are doing: forecasting the weather, or simulating a nuclear explosion. Nothing even CLOSE to human consciousness. If someone can point me to somewhere in this world where computers are approaching human consciousness, please do so. The android Data of Star Trek Next Generation fame, devoid of emotion yet in every other way superior to humans, is still -- as far as I know, and correct me if you know different -- a far-fetched science fiction fantasy. (And by the way, being devoid of emotion may be another way in which Data is superior to humans).
The one promising application of computer technology is neural networks, in which a feedback mechanism is used to "train" a computer to make ever smarter and smarter decisions. But such a computer, just like a human, would need years of training to learn enough to really become smart by our estimation. Perhaps someone knows of latest developments in this area that are leading in the direction of a "Data". Is there a neural network chess program somewhere that has been sufficiently trained to be, say, Master level or higher?
I admit I know nothing about HCI. Shouldn't they give it a sexier name? Hmmmm, something like "HuComIn"? As in Ray Kurzweil's wife (if he has one) asking "HuComIn to bed honey?", to which Ray responds, "In a minute, I still have 75 more pills to swallow."
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
My original post did not suggest that humans would be supplanted by thinking robots.
Rather I postulate that someone hot-wired with a computer
would outcompete an unassisted human.
Imagine a carpenter that did not need to refer to a printed blueprint but had all the specs in his 'head'.
Or how about a surgeon that could see behind critical organs. He could see every bit of a malignant tumor for precise surgical removal.
Who would you want to perform the operation if your life depended on it?
Would the old style surgeon still have a job?
Back to chess, if that surgeon or carpenter wanted to play in a tournament, would you turn them away just because they had Fritz or Rybka 'in their head'?:)
My original post did not suggest that humans would be supplanted by thinking robots.
Rather I postulate that someone hot-wired with a computer
would outcompete an unassisted human.
Imagine a carpenter that did not need to refer to a printed blueprint but had all the specs in his 'head'.
Or how about a surgeon that could see behind critical organs. He could see every bit of a malignant tumor for precise surgical removal.
Who would you want to perform the operation if your life depended on it?
Would the old style surgeon still have a job?
Back to chess, if that surgeon or carpenter wanted to play in a tournament, would you turn them away just because they had Fritz or Rybka 'in their head'?:)
For the chess question, I don't understand why anyone would want to play in the tournament having an HCI connection to a chess program. What does this do for them? If they win, can they feel any sense of accomplishment? Talk about being a woodpusher! It wasn't them making the decisions, it was the program. The special interface isn't needed, they could just be running it on a laptop.
On the other hand, if you had a group of computer programmers and asked each of them to develop and TRAIN their own neural network chess program and then every year, their programs would be entered in a tournament, that WOULD give the winner a sense of accomplishment. S/he created it and s/he trained it! Kind of a different way to be a "chess parent". You could finish last one year, take your program home, train it more, and see if it could improve the next year.
If I had a million dollars, I'd buy a K-car (apologies to Barenaked Ladies fans) AND I'd make such an proposal and hold such a tournament with a substantial prize fund.
Hey Larry, there's something you can do with that $20,000!
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
The solution to HCI is EMP! Electromagnetic Pulse, like in the James Bond movie Goldeneye. We can miniturize it, and everyone who wishes to play in a rated event has to pass through an EMP screen. Technology cuts both ways. It can present us with problems but also solutions.
I am sure the people with pace makers would love this.
At this year's Canadian Open in Edmonton, we have hired Ben Daswani to yank out any wires from player's heads. He has bargain basement prices!
Hi Micah,
Could you reveal us at what sort of money Ben Daswani was hired and he is going to do that job (if that is not a secret)? I'm just curious.
:)
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