Re: computer-go: life and death

[David Fotland <fotland@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In your introduction, in figure 1.1, you give two examples of positions 
that you claim no current computer
go program can correctly evaluate.  This is not correct.  Did you actually 
give this position to
any strong go programs and ask for their evaluation?  Many Faces' static 
evaluation understands
both examples.  The group at a14 is particularly easy since the adjacent 
white group you mention
has only 3 liberties, so the string tactics can read that the white group 
is captured.

I think every current strong go program will correctly statically evaluate 
both of these fights.

And I also think that every strong program can get the correct answer to 
90% or more of the
problems in Graded go problems volume 2.  These are still very easy problems.

Still, your knowledge based approach is interesting, especially if can lead 
to programs that
can expand their own knowledge without human intervention.  Without some 
kind of automatic
knowledge acquisition, it seems that every new problem will need some new 
knowledge, and the
program can never get very strong at life and death.

David


At 07:48 PM 5/27/2001 -0400, you wrote:

> Some of you might be interested in my thesis titled "Adversarial
> Reasoning: A Logical Approach for Computer Go".  It's available for
> download from my homepage:  http://cs.nyu.edu/phd_students/klinger (under
> Research Interests).
>
> It's mostly about work that I did with David Mechner on a knowledge-based
> life and death problem solver. It uses a logical theory of life and
> death (expressed in a modal logic) coupled with pattern knowledge about
> "reasonable" moves to solve uncircumscribed, beginner life and death
> problems (from Kano I and II).  There's also some discussion of the logic
> itself and a formalization of some basic go concepts and rules.
>
> Tim Klinger
David Fotland