Re: computer-go: Authenticating the identity of a remote go-playing computer program

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

   From: Steve Korfhage <korfhage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

   I don't agree at all with limiting algorithms to be deterministic.  This is 
   too limiting to the developers and especially the AI field in general as 
   applied to the game of Go.  I think this would cut too many opportunities 
   out of competition.


Steve,

You make it  sound as if avoiding deterministic  behavior is some kind
of virtue and  allowing it   allows  you to write  more  sophisticated
higher level AI programs.  This is nonsense and has nothing to do with
AI.

The only reason a computer  based algorithm might be non-deterministic
is if you do not, or are not able to  document all it's inputs.  These
inputs  might include flaky hardware or  even  software bugs where you
access   uninitialzed    memory.     Some  parallel   algorithms   are
non-deterministic,  but only because it's  not possible to predict the
state of the  hardware at every given  instance of execution.  Even in
this case, it's no virtue, it's an undesirable side affect.   

I think we all agree that we don't wish  to require all programs to be
properly deterministic in this respect, but having said that, I'll bet
most are.  Since programs  are  deterministic by nature, you  actually
have to program  them  explicity to  change this  behavior.   Or if  a
program   is complex  enough  it  will have  enough   bugs to make  it
nondeterministic,  which  might mean   it is accessing  un-initialized
memory or some other goof like this.

Don