One Giant Step for a Chess-Playing Machine

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Peter:

I think that when one looks at human nature and anti-social behaviour, one must distinguish between:

1. the general altruistic tendency of the population generally, and

2. The much less altruistic behaviour of the humans who hold power.

Bob A

[Erik Malmsten]

Hi Peter:

I think that when one looks at human nature and anti-social behaviour, one must distinguish between:

1. the general altruistic tendency of the population generally, and

2. The much less altruistic behaviour of the humans who hold power.

Bob A

Seems too simplistic Bob. We are all jugglers.
1. There are limits to altruistic behaviour, balanced with personal needs. Although we cooperate by stopping at a red light, there are times when we are in a hurry and risk crossing. Or we'll give a dollar to a panhandler, but not invite them home for dinner.
2. Humans who hold power have to make decisions and most decisions help some and don't help others.

[Garland Best]

If altruism is programmed rather than learned, then, subject to certain exceptions (e.g. our selfless concern for the well-being of immediate family), it must be a very weak piece of programming!

I'm sure that this falls into one of these nature vs nurture debate categories and it's a blend of the two. We are capable of both good and evil, and there are evil persons who were taught to be good by loving parents, and vice versa.

Now I'm wandering off-topic. I started this as a scientific discussion and it's now becoming philosophical. Oh well.

[Paul Bonham]

Thanks, Garland, for your polite and thoughtful response. If altruism is programmed rather than learned, then, subject to certain exceptions (e.g. our selfless concern for the well-being of immediate family), it must be a very weak piece of programming! Just a non-exhaustive list (without wars, with one exception) of mankind's inhumanity to mankind from the last two hundred years gives us: American slavery; the British Raj; genocidal behaviour toward North American indigenous peoples; the Armenian genocide; Stalin's Ukrainian famine genocide; Stalin's Great Purge; the Holocaust; apartheid; the Vietnam War; the Rwandan genocide; the Serbian genocidal efforts against Bosnian muslims; and on it goes. Consider the number of people who participated as direct perpetrators in the above and then the substantially larger number of people who knew but did nothing. I'm hoping that altruism is primarily a learned behaviour. It gives me hope for the future.

The most current example, besides North Korea's treatment of its own people, is right here in America, the POTUS and others in or formerly in his Administration (notably Kelly Anne Conway and former AG Sessions) basically trying to tell all migrants from Central America, "don't even come here to claim asylum, stay in your country and let the oppressors of your country do what they want with you".

Trump's America is heartless, it is greedy, it is immoral. And it is as foolish as can be: he would withdraw the U.S. from NATO if the other nations weren't paying their way, ignoring the lessons of WWII.

If nations were living organisms, this behavior might fit the needed evolutionary pattern for survival. Except for the NATO example, in which the altruistic upkeep of NATO by the U.S. would be in its own interest of survival in the long term.

This migrant issue is a worldwide test of altruism. Every "well off" nation is having issues with immigration, because oppression within the "not well off" nations has reached such an extreme. People are fleeing for their lives as never before. To take them in and help them taxes our resources, but to turn them away and see them die at our borders or even in custody within our borders attacks our (programmed or learned) sense of altruism.

It's hard to believe this isn't all going to lead to some major conflict between superpowers. It's only a question of how and when. I also believe it could lead to another civil war within the U.S. because of the increasing polarization going on right now.

[Paul Bonham]

1) Random does not mean all possibilities are equally likely. It is less likely that a fatal genetic flaw will survive. It is more likely that the 100 people have good genetic traits, given the simple fact that they have survived to the present day. I reject your statement that altruism is equally an evolutionary advantage or disadvantage.

Where is your evidence that if we selected 100 random people right now, they would be more likely to have nothing but good genetic traits for future survival of humanity than to have 1 or more traits that could be fatal to future human survival?

Polar bears exist right now, but they are all dependent on sea ice to survive into the future. Let's select 100 polar bears and see how many of them have all the genetic material needed to survive global warming.

If we could go back in time, we could select 100 Woolly Mammoths. You're argument is that because they exist at that time, they are all at that time "more likely" to have good genetic traits.

You are pissing in the wind. You have presented no evidence to support your claims. You tell me I should read a book. Why don't you present some scientific evidence from that book?

2) I also reject your example of voting for Trump. "White supremacist men" voted for Trump because they expected direct benefits to them as a result (I get a job. I keep others out of my country and taking my things). That is not altruism. Voting in favor of a carbon tax IS altruism, because it takes money out of our pockets to reduce climate change, even though the effects of climate change will not be severe during our lifetime.

It was presented as altruism by Trump: instead of "I get a job. I keep others out of my country and taking my things" it was presented as "We get jobs. We keep others out of our country and taking our things." It was presented as survival of White Supremacist Male America, but without actually saying that's what it was.

This played out well in the rust belt. It convinced many in key midwestern states who wouldn't have otherwise considered voting for Trump. No one else running for President was saying that we have to save coal jobs. In fact the coal industry is a microcosm of this entire discussion. Obama was letting the coal industry die a slow death, a death that evolution says should happen even if it would be a hardship for many. Trump came along and decided coal needs to be saved. Trump passed his sense of altruism for the coal industry on to voters as MAGA and they bought the message, not realizing that it is better for America and the world that coal dies and renewable energy replaces it.

If America goes back to coal in a big way, it is likely fatal to at least America and perhaps the entire human race, and for evidence I simply point to the things that climate scientists have been telling us, even Trump's own government report of a few weeks ago which he read and "doesn't believe".

Thus altruism towards the coal industry could potentially end humanity.

I agree with your point about voting for carbon tax... but that altruism LOST OUT to Trump's altruism for the coal industry (although I don't think carbon tax was even discussed in the 2016 campaign).

So you see, altruism can be both for and against survival of the species. In so many ways, Trump advocated a "going back" to "make America great again". Evolution is never about going back. But a sense of altruism to save White Male America led many tens of thousands of very important voters to buy into Trump's message.

You can go ahead and believe altruism is advantageous to evolution, but that is wrong. It is random in its overall effects. If you really want to fight for your viewpoint, present scientific evidence, not some conjectures (better word than speculation! LOL) from some book.

3) Are you paraphrasing Matthew 24? If so you are quoting wildly out of context. It refers to Jesus predicting the coming Apocalypse. Your entire paragraph is total nonsense. If you are going to quote scripture for views on altruism, try Matthew 7:12, "Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.", or Matthew 5:44, "But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you".

No, I wasn't wildly out of context, you just don't understand the context. I wasn't looking for any scripture about altruism. Sorry it went over your head. Your entire arguments about altruism are speculation, but you will apparently stick to them as fact anyway. Perhaps we should call your arguments "alternative facts"???

[Sid Belzberg]

Thanks for taking the time to post that, Sid. It wasn't what I was looking for but that's due to my poorly worded question, not any misinterpretation on your part.

Hi Peter,
The abstract I posted cites Hamilton. This is the scientific evidence that Hamilton used to present his theories of the Genetics of Altruisim.

"Inclusive fitness was originally developed to explain eusociality, a extreme form of altruism found in social insects, where non-reproducing colony members give up their right to reproduce and devote their lives to caring for the offspring of a single reproducing member.

Hamilton's inclusive fitness theory was invented to solve this paradox, which vexed even Darwin. Hamilton calculated that sterile castes could evolve if altruistic sterility sufficiently benefited relatives also carrying the altruistic gene.

Kin selection and inclusive fitness quickly became the dominant mode of thinking about the evolution of eusocial insects and their success in this area led to their application to many other problems in social evolution."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0323075241.htm

The second part of the abstract i originally cited for you does provide evidence albeit indirect of the existence of the actual gene for altruisim without actually isolating the gene. They postulate evidence in the phenotype population (oxytocin) rather then the actual genotype which is what I believe you are looking for.

"We also provide evidence from a human population for genetically based trade-offs, underlain by oxytocin-system polymorphisms, between alleles for altruism and alleles for non-social cognition. Such trade-offs between self-oriented and altruistic behaviour may influence the evolution of phenotypic diversity across all social animals"

Hopefully that is what you were looking for. i have always found genetics fascinating and actually studied it at the University of Alberta for several years graduating with a Bsc degree in Biology with my specialty being molecular genetics.
Thanks,
Sid

[Sid Belzberg]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0323075241.htm

[Garland Best]

Let's start at the top:

1) First of all I did not say they were more likely to have "nothing but" good genetic traits. Those are your words, not mine. The odds are pretty decent that one or more of them have one or more bad traits. That could be said about my own family genes (hence inbreeding is normally a bad thing). But regardless, by saving 100 random persons, my genes have made 100 bets on helping my species, and all things being equal among those persons, it seems to be a good bet that one or more of these bets will be helpful.

Second of all, evolutionary theory favors genes for the conditions that exist at that time or in the recent past. Genes cannot predict the future. When the environment changes, species that were previously successful fail and die out. That is why woolly mammoths became extinct. However if I was a woolly mammoth 15000 years ago, and if I could have saved 100 fellow woolly mammoths by sacrificing myself, perhaps we woolly mammoths could have survived longer. And with your polar bear example, if I saved 100 of them, I increase that odds that one exists with genes that could survive global warming, thus helping the species. So from a genetic standpoint, the more individuals that survive, the more likely the species survives. And the more similar those genes are to my genes, the greater the likelyhood that my altruistic behavior will ensure that my genes continue to survive.

Dawkins cites examples in the animal world (a bird in a flock calling out when seeing a predator, thereby alerting the flock to seek safety, but also drawing the predator's attention to itself. In social insects like bees and ants, individuals have completely given up the ability to reproduce, all to serve then needs of the queen, so that the colony as a whole thrives). These are examples of altruistic behavior in other species. You could also read the paper that Sid already referred to. Consider these as evidence. There is an entire field of sociobiology that examines ideas like these.

2) I am not Trump, so I cannot know for sure what or how he thinks. However based on what I have observed, I do not believe that he campaigned for the Presidency for altruistic reasons. I believe he did it for selfish reasons, namely to please his vanity and ego. Saying the coal industry should be saved garnered him votes in regions he could win, while costing him votes in regions he could not win. This was not altruistic behavior. Coal workers who voted for Trump to save their jobs voted for self-interest. Altruism means some self-sacrifice for the benefits of others. Where is the self-sacrifice in anything Trump ran on? None of your examples from Trump show any form of self-sacrifice. Just the opposite.

3) If I misunderstood your reference to a passage in the bible, perhaps we would both be better served if you explained what your point was in the first place, rather than saying it went over my head. That helps neither of us.

[Paul Bonham]

Let's start at the top:

1) ....Genes cannot predict the future. When the environment changes, species that were previously successful fail and die out. That is why woolly mammoths became extinct. However if I was a woolly mammoth 15000 years ago, and if I could have saved 100 fellow woolly mammoths by sacrificing myself, perhaps we woolly mammoths could have survived longer. And with your polar bear example, if I saved 100 of them, I increase that odds that one exists with genes that could survive global warming, thus helping the species. So from a genetic standpoint, the more individuals that survive, the more likely the species survives. And the more similar those genes are to my genes, the greater the likelyhood that my altruistic behavior will ensure that my genes continue to survive.

Dawkins cites examples in the animal world (a bird in a flock calling out when seeing a predator, thereby alerting the flock to seek safety, but also drawing the predator's attention to itself. In social insects like bees and ants, individuals have completely given up the ability to reproduce, all to serve then needs of the queen, so that the colony as a whole thrives). These are examples of altruistic behavior in other species. You could also read the paper that Sid already referred to. Consider these as evidence. There is an entire field of sociobiology that examines ideas like these.

It is the bolded statement that I disagree with if the individuals being saved are not saved because of their own actions. Simply because the individuals that survive, i.e. the individuals THAT WOULD HAVE PERISHED WITHOUT MY INTERFERENCE, were meant to die to cull the species. That is how evolution works, and altruism interferes with it.

We as humans could save polar bears that are starving because they aren't adapting to global warming. We could put the saved polar bears in zoos. Let's say we saved 100 polar bears, put them in zoos, and meanwhile all other wild polar bears perished. Now those polar bears in zoos can never be released into the Arctic wild, they would perish very quickly. Our altruism saved individuals of a species that was meant to perish.

Altruism is random. Instead of saving others, all members of the species should be saving themselves using their genetically acquired abilities, and if one individual fails in that task, the species has been improved. But if they succeed in that task the species has ALSO been improved. And as evolution proves, some species aren't meant to last.

To save those meant to die due to something in their environment is interference and has random effects. Altruism itself may be a genetic experiment. Perhaps all the species that are letting altruism become a dominant factor are on the path to extinction.

2) I am not Trump, so I cannot know for sure what or how he thinks. However based on what I have observed, I do not believe that he campaigned for the Presidency for altruistic reasons. I believe he did it for selfish reasons, namely to please his vanity and ego. Saying the coal industry should be saved garnered him votes in regions he could win, while costing him votes in regions he could not win. This was not altruistic behavior. Coal workers who voted for Trump to save their jobs voted for self-interest. Altruism means some self-sacrifice for the benefits of others. Where is the self-sacrifice in anything Trump ran on? None of your examples from Trump show any form of self-sacrifice. Just the opposite.

Yes, he wanted to please his vanity and ego, no argument there. But all of his main impulses as President -- America First in trade with the world, saving the coal industry, etc. -- were things he was espousing decades ago. So part of his purpose was to actually bring about his beliefs, and one of these is the saving of the coal industry. It was altruistic behavior because he made it a campaign platform even though it could have easily cost him the election, especially in view of how well things were going under Obama with the rise of renewable energy. The entire country was seeing the benefits of that. If he had lost, his campaigning on saving the coal industry would have been self sacrifice. But as it turned out, a lot of people saw it as part of MAGA, part of "going back". And many of these people in critical midwestern states changed their vote based on that.

3) If I misunderstood your reference to a passage in the bible, perhaps we would both be better served if you explained what your point was in the first place, rather than saying it went over my head. That helps neither of us.

You called everything I wrote there "absolute nonsense" after totally misinterpreting it. Now you want me to help you understand it? Go back and read it. Its perfectly clear what I meant, and you apparently don't want to let it interfere with your biases.

[Garland Best]

I shouldn't be responding to this. This is supposed to be a chess forum, and the original thread topic was about whether altruism could develop naturally in AI, given what we have seen in programs like Alphazero. Now we are debating the bible.

Paul, here is your original passage again:

"I know you're a student of the Bible, Garland, and in the Bible it says that (paraphrasing): "except those days should be shortened, no life should survive". Is it possible that the God of the Bible could know such a thing because he gave us altruism, and altruism (because it is so pervasive in humans and because its effects are random) is a death sentence to the species on a planet and ecosystem that demands absolute selfishness?"

So let's go back to Matthew 24, which says (Note: I cut down the passage for sake of space. The full passage can be found at https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...24&version=NIV): "As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered: "... Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.... there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened."

So the passage describes a coming apocalypse, which would have killed all of us completely, but is cut short to save some of us. If one believes that those elect are those that follow the teachings of the bible, then those who show altruistic behavior are precisely the ones that will be saved. There is nothing in the passage that says the events that occur to cause the calamity are a result of our altruism. Hence my response to your question.

[Dave Michael]

One Giant Step for a Chess-Playing Machine

December 26, 2018

This is the title of an essay in The New York Times.

The subtitle:

The stunning success of AlphaZero, a deep-learning algorithm, heralds a new age of insight — one that, for humans, may not last long.

It is by Steven Strogatz, a professor of mathematics at Cornell and author of the forthcoming “Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe,” from which this essay is adapted.

I’m not sure if you can read the article because of the paywall:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/s...ection=Science


A couple of extracts:

All of that has changed with the rise of machine learning. By playing against itself and updating its neural network as it learned from experience, AlphaZero discovered the principles of chess on its own and quickly became the best player ever. Not only could it have easily defeated all the strongest human masters — it didn’t even bother to try — it crushed Stockfish, the reigning computer world champion of chess. In a hundred-game match against a truly formidable engine, AlphaZero scored twenty-eight wins and seventy-two draws. It didn’t lose a single game.

When AlphaZero was first unveiled, some observers complained that Stockfish had been lobotomized by not giving it access to its book of memorized openings. This time around, even with its book, it got crushed again. And when AlphaZero handicapped itself by giving Stockfish ten times more time to think, it still destroyed the brute.

Tellingly, AlphaZero won by thinking smarter, not faster; it examined only 60 thousand positions a second, compared to 60 million for Stockfish. It was wiser, knowing what to think about and what to ignore. By discovering the principles of chess on its own, AlphaZero developed a style of play that “reflects the truth” about the game rather than “the priorities and prejudices of programmers,” Mr. Kasparov wrote.

But envisage a day, perhaps in the not too distant future, when AlphaZero has evolved into a more general problem-solving algorithm; call it AlphaInfinity. Like its ancestor, it would have supreme insight: it could come up with beautiful proofs, as elegant as the chess games that AlphaZero played against Stockfish. And each proof would reveal why a theorem was true; AlphaInfinity wouldn’t merely bludgeon you into accepting it with some ugly, difficult argument.

For human mathematicians and scientists, this day would mark the dawn of a new era of insight. But it may not last. As machines become ever faster, and humans stay put with their neurons running at sluggish millisecond time scales, another day will follow when we can no longer keep up. The dawn of human insight may quickly turn to dusk.

The next step would be translate these insights Alpha Zero has coded into it's neural network into human understandable form. I assume currently these ideas themselves are coded into very large chunks of seemingly arbitrary numbers in the neural network and we can only get an idea of what they mean by watching alphazero play. Once these ideas are fleshed out what will we learn ?

A pawn is worth significantly less than 1 point in most situations ?
An open file closer to the oponent's King is worth 5 points ... and so on.

Or maybe many of these ideas are so fine grained only a computer can properly understand them ? And we are better off sticking with ideas humans have codified.