A Thunk is a beguilingly simple-looking question about everyday things that stops you in your tracks and helps you start to look at the world in a whole new light. © Ian Gilbert.
Thunk 20:
If you play chess against a computer and lose, then who or what beat you?
If you play chess against a computer and lose, then who or what beat you?
18 comments:
I think the person who has written the commands for the game beats the player. Because the creator of the game writes steps for the computer to follow in all possible situations and stores them. So the next time one plays the game and makes any move, the computer will automatically take the step that has been written for it to take when that particular move is made. As We all know that every machine requires some command to control it, be it automatic or manual. Same is the case with a chess game, where all the moves are thought of by the creator but made by the computer. But the thing is that the computer has so many commands stored within it that it has to look through all of them before it can make a move. So does the credit go to the computer for analysing the situation at that point and choosing the most suitable command or the creator who wrote those commands?
I agree with Sonal on this, I mean networks must get their data from somewhere, and it's most likely not from the computer itself.
^ Good points Sonal.
Is what goes on in our brain radically different from what goes on in a computer? The moves a human chess master makes are based on rules he learnt and on past experience and on what he expects the computer to do. That's more or less what the computer does - it has the rules stored. It has a database of past moves and old games. And it "imagines" what the human opponent will do. Humans make decisions based on neurons firing in the brain. Computers make moves based on micro processors firing in their drives. So, if we give humans credit for winning - why shouldn't we give the computer credit for winning?
Well as for the 1st question, the programmer deserves the credit there. It was their intellect in the first place that was inserted into the game in an attempt to beat you.
And secondly, the main difference I think between the brain and a computer is emotion. When playing chess a humans over-confidence may rise above their ability to think properly, whereas a computer would see the solution and have nothing interfere. Same goes for "rewarding" the computer, it doesn't have any emotions so its quite pointless...
Kind of repeating what Sonal has mentioned, because I agree with his points and I also think of the situation the same way.
The computer game would have been programmed with many different moves, by various masters, but the computer would analyse and choose from all the options given to it to put forth its next move or counter step.
If one loses the game, then I guess the computer itself would have to be credited with the win, because it was the one who made all of the choices on how to proceed. This could also be compared with all other situations where there is a master/teacher/instructor and a student/follower.
The teacher would provide the student with all the necessary information in order to progress and excell at the particular subject, and when the moment of opportunity arises, or a test has been given to the student, that person will be able to analyse and choose the best method to progress and if the student has achieved a high level of success then that individual is to be credited due to his or her own method of analytical thinking.
It’s been a long time since I heard a TV called an idiot box and a computer as a glorified computing machine. Of course I would accept defeat from the programmer and not the computer. It may be a sophisticated machine but it is still a machine. thus I enjoyed the game but if it was a defeat on my part then i accept that I don’t know how to play well and if I win then as is human nature I accept all the glory and satisfaction that comes from the win.
Agreeing with Sonal, i also believe that it's the programmer's wits that lead the computer to it's victory.
Focusing on Mr Robert's question.. Well computers don't exactly have any sense of "superbia", so accrediting my computer won't really make a difference. And like Duwane's point suggests that emotions only act as obstacles for humans and clearly, not for computers.
i think it would be the programmer who created the software because he/she would have set the correct moves and eventually beaten you
You lost to a human... indirectly. You lost to the program made by a human and administered by a computer. I agree with Sonal.
I always think about this thunk and come to the conclusion that it is the programmer who beats the player as he/she is the one who sets the moves the computer should play.
Aisha Bashir.
10g2
ummmmmmmmm...ummm.ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... gah!!
oky..I think too like everyone else that the programmer beats the player.....like myra said " you lost to a human.....indirectly."
P.S very intresting thunk....been thinking about it the whole week!!!
A lot of people have already said it:
The computer's programmer has beat you by writing the set of commands that predicted your every move. Without him, the computer would be nothing but an empty shell, since it is incapable of thinking by itself.
Another point was raised about the absence of emotions, and I agree to that as well. Human judgement gets obscured by emotions, and both overconfidence and fear affect a player's state of mind on the boardgame's battlefield. The computer merely carries out its instructions with no hesitation, and little victories such as toppling the opponent's queen does not cause it to throw all caution to the wind. It continues playing, consistently precise and calculating.
However, I cant shake off this thought that in a way, failure to predict ahead and impaired judgement are one's true opponents during the game, and if you lose, you have been beaten by your own incompetence?
do i make any sense :p
*has beaten
^ Many above say the we are beaten by the computer programmer. Perhaps. But consider one of the most powerful computers, IBM Deep Blue, used to beat the greatest chess grandmaster ever, Gary Kasparov.
None of the Deep Blue programmers (either individually or collectively) could EVER beat Kasparov. Yet Deep Blue managed it. Does the computer get any credit at all?
I guess the computer gets credit for having the ability to perform predictions based on complex calculations in just mere seconds, thus allowing it to decide on the right move to make in a matter of minutes. Human beings would take ages to predict that far ahead, in a way, making them have less foresight than the computer, leading to them losing..?
:S
A programmer simply teaches the computer to what response should be made with the given stimulus, the programmers goal is not to beat you or to even play with you, his goal is to create something that can observe the given situation on the chessboard and decide what may be the best possible strategy to achieve the purpose of the game
(In humans the purpose of chess is to prove who is seemingly better, in computers it's just to follow all the 0 and 1 commands that tell it that the King piece should be disposed off)
So the programmer doesn't win anything because he's not playing, the computer can be said to win statistically but really it's just following orders and the point of following orders is to positively serve the medium that is giving you orders which in this case the medium does not exist in the game because as again the programmer is not present in your chess game.
So through it all you really just lose to yourself because your opponant doesn't actually exist or understand "winning".
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