Re: computer-go: life and death

[Tim Klinger <klinger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi David,

Actually what I (literally) said was "Such an analysis is beyond current
go-playing programs and is the focus of our research."  This doesn't mean
that current programs can't get some of these problems right.  What it
means is that they lack the ability to construct an analysis of situations
like these in general.

When you say that every strong program could get 90%+ on Kano volume 2, do
you mean that they could completely solve 90% of those problems by
hypothesizing moves for each player at each ply until the problem was
statically solvable?  I doubt it, but I didn't try.

I don't know whether knowledge acquisition is required for a strong life
and death problem solver but I suspect that programs could do quite well
with a decent human-supplied knowledge-base.  I was suprised at how far a
little knowledge went in our experiments.

Cheers,
Tim

David Fotland wrote:

> 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