Re: [computer-go] Computer Go tournament at EGF

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Robin,

I think your encription technique is flawed.  If China tries to use
high ranking Dan players to encode messages, then the west could
simply build hardware to search the entire game tree and solve the
problem!  Such a machine will be stronger than the eastern players.

The speed of light is indeed a problem even inside our computers
today.  Presumably, to build my big GO computer I will want to use a
great deal of parallelism.  I think I would want to use the whole
universe as my computer.  Would proabably have to figure out how to
use wormholes to speed up communication.  

The perfect GO computer might not be that far away, perhaps a few
hundred/thousand years.  It truly does not seem possible with things
we know now, but maybe we will know more in a few hundred years?
Nah!!!!!






   I was thining about this the other day.  The turing machine came out of 
   the research conducted during world war II in the effort to break german 
   encryption techniques.  However, to dupe the germans we used an arcane 
   language "Navajo".  Does the difference in Go playing strengths pose a 
   potential security problem.

   Could China use Go games as an encryption technique, by using high 
   ranking Dan's to encode messages as Go problems sufficiently difficult 
   so as to prevent the highest ranking player in the west from reading 
   them out properly, but also concrete enough such that anyone of an 
   equivalent rank in the east would immeadiately see the answer?

   Don, what about Amdahl's law "No matter how much you speed up some part 
   of the process, the time the entire process takes is equivalent to the 
   sum of the individual times".  The speed of light is a constant for our 
   purposes the distance light travels in a nanosecond(a theoretical 
   maximum speed) = 1/3 of a meter. 

   The distances between the computers will be inherently farther and 
   therefore take more time than the computations within the same computer.

   Cheers,

   Robin

   Don Dailey wrote:

   >Hi Rich,
   >
   >I think you are getting hung up on the analogy I used and not getting
   >the deeper point.  I think most of the group understood it was about the
   >relationship between computing power and GO playing strength.
   >
   >You see, the computer is purely hypothetical.  It is not something you
   >are supposed to try to build.  Think of it like you might think of a
   >"plane" in geometry, not a real physical object, just a mathematical
   >concept.
   >
   >When I was in high school the teacher made the mistake of comparing a
   >"plane" to a "very large flat sheet of paper" and several of the
   >children couldn't get past the physical properties of a piece of
   >paper!
   >
   >In computer science, there is a device called a "Turing machine."  A
   >turing machine is a hypothetic gadget that can never be built.  A pure
   >turning machine has infinite memory and this is probably the point
   >that probably would confuse some of us.  It is like the "plane" in the
   >sense that it is an abstraction, not an actual device or physical
   >object.
   >
   >But nevertheless, it is an incredibly useful little gadget.  It is
   >used much as I tried to use the hypothetical Go playing engine, to
   >prove things via the use of thought experiements.
   >
   >So anything you described about the physical properties of computers,
   >the age of the universe, the speed of light, number of grains of sand
   >on the seashore, isn't really very interesting or relevant, these are
   >facts everyone on this group probably are aware of and has nothing to
   >do with my argument.
   >
   >Let me try to dumb this down in a way that requires less imagination:
   >
   >  1. Imagine a real machine that consists of a network of workstations.
   >
   >  2. Imagine taking GnuGo and running a copy of it on each workstation.
   >
   >  3. Imagine software that builds a big networked search based on the 
   >     move generation and evaluation algorithms of GnuGo on this network.
   >
   >  4. Try to envision the possiblity that such a beast would play much
   >     better than GnuGo run by itself.   Perhaps even being able to give
   >     GnuGo a several stone handicap.
   >
   >  5. Don't forget that such a machine cannot work without consuming 
   >     significantly more resources than GnuGo running on a single computer.
   >
   >In my opinion, such a machine would be a wonderful invention.  Would
   >you say that such a machine demonstrates the relationship between
   >computing power and Go playing strength?
   >
   >If I haven't stretched anyones imagination too much, could it be
   >possible that a far bigger machine might be capable of playing even
   >better?  It doesn't have to be so big it can't fit in our physical
   >universe, I know this concept would be too much for some of us to deal
   >with.
   >
   >
   >
   >- Don
   >
   >
   >
   >
   >
   >
   >   Don Dailey wrote:
   >
   >   > The point he is making is that you can't isolate the execution time of
   >   > the algorithm from the playing strength.  It IS in fact easy to write
   >   > a perfect go program given no time constraints (just search until
   >   > solution.)  The issue isn't how GOOD your program is, it is how good
   >   > it is in a given amount of time.
   >
   >   I've heard that assertion many times before, that "It IS in fact easy
   >   to write a perfect go program given no time constraints (just search
   >   until solution.)"
   >
   >   But there is an _inherent_ time constraint:  It's the age (and the
   >   expected age) of the universe.  It has been shown that it would take
   >   longer than the duration of the universe to perform the search, even
   >   if there were enough storage.
   >
   >   Furthermore, the number of go positions one would have to store is
   >   larger than the (finite) number of atomic particles in the universe,
   >   so even if there were an _infinite_ amount of time (which there isn't,
   >   because the universe does have an age) there isn't enough storage
   >   space to keep track of the results.
   >
   >   Similarly, even if there were an _infinite_ amount of storage, (which
   >   there isn't, because the number of atomic particles in the universe
   >   is finite) there isn't enough time to perform the search!
   >
   >   Such problems -- those that require a longer time than the age of the
   >   universe, or that require more storage than the number of atomic
   >   particles in the universe are called "inherently intractable".
   >
   >   And that's why _not_even_ brute-force will work.  It is _NOT_ possible.
   >
   >   The assertion that it is "easy to write a perfect go program given no
   >   time constraints" is simply not true.
   >
   >   Not even theoretically.
   >
   >   That said, I _still_ think that a program that can play a perfect
   >   game given a week is of more intrinsic value than one that can play
   >   a flawed game in an hour.  It all depends upon what is considered
   >   truly important for the program to be able to do.
   >
   >   Thus we see that the issue is entirely subjective.
   >
   >   What is _not_ subject to interpretation, is whether it is theoretically
   >   possible to write a perfect program that uses brute force, "given enough
   >   time" or "given enough storage".  It absolutely is not possible, let
   >   alone "easy".
   >
   >   -- 
   >   Rich
   >
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   >  
   >

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