RE: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?

  • From: "Homme, James" <james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:58:43 -0500

Hi Sina,
I like your answer. Now that I'm 52, I think I'm wrong most of the time. Wait. 
Is that right?

Jim

Jim Homme,
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From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sina Bahram
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 10:03 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?

Using first principles, the search space has stayed exactly the same, haha.

But, the search through it has now gotten, at a bare minimum 16, if not 32, 
times faster.

More importantly however, you can use GPU acceleration for this.

Did the link I sent out after the below email have enough for you, or would you 
like me to send more?

Oh, and it's young, my friend, young enough to think I'm right more than I am, 
*grin*.



Take care,
Sina



From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels Roos
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 9:57 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?

Cite your sources, cite your sources young / middle aged / old man (it is man 
right?)! Ha ha ha!

Sina,  Is it really the case that a brute force attack beats all but the very 
best these days? But what about "my" laptop.... I don't know hey.... No, just 
kidding.

When I last read about it, about 5 to 7 years ago I think the situation was 
that only at short, almost blitz games did the machine wi, and at long games 
there were no conclusive answer. Could have been other way round, but the point 
is that you *can* beat the machine in some cases.

Ah well, can always get up and pull the plug can't you?

On 2/18/2011 4:36 PM, Sina Bahram wrote:

Just to add to this discussion a bit.



As far as chess goes, it is considered, anymore, very much uninteresting. 
Unfortunately, chess, unlike what they thought in the 60's, requires no 
strategy anymore. A bruit force attempt is pretty much guaranteed to win, and 
unlike in 1997 or 1995, my laptop is good enough to beat all but the very best, 
and if I want to do that, I could just throw it on my desktop.



Now, it is a nice framework within which to learn about min/max and other 
simplistic AI strategies, so I encourage anyone who is studying AI to write a  
simple chess solver.



Take care,

Sina

From: 
programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ken Perry
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 7:33 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?



Kerneels,



This is one of the best answers of this question I have seen outside of a class 
room.  I have nothing to add except if you're looking for books on this sort of 
thing do a google search on "game intelligence book"



ken



From: 
programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Kerneels Roos
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 3:18 AM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?



Hi Jim,

Nice question!

The problem of solving strategy games such as chess and tic tac toe and drafts 
involves generating a search tree that represents as many possibilities for 
each move at each level as you have resources for, and then, by searching 
finding the best possible next move with an eventual favourable end in mind. In 
essense, the program looks ahead into the future to avoid being duped by sub 
optimal moves which might yeald short term benefits but eventual damnation!

A big part of this is searching the tree or graph of possibilities efficiently, 
representing the structures efficiently and employing huristics (rules of 
thumb) to keep things from exploding into too large to handle data sets.

It's part of the field of classic AI and it has been studied for decades now. 
It's sometimes also referred to as symbolic AI as it deals with discrete values 
and usually involves a type of math called discrete math (as aposed to calculas 
for example, that deals with continuous systems, values approaching 0, values 
approaching infinity and fractions).

All this might sound fairly complicated but I can assure you it's actually not, 
and many of these classic AI problems have been solved sufficiently. For 
example, there are chess systems that can't be beaten. Yes, the machines can 
beat us at very narrowly defined games such as chess, and it can only beat the 
world champions with significant effort on the machine designer's part, to such 
an extent that it's debatable if the contest is even fair or not.

For example, in the whole Deep Blue saga, IBM programmed their system to beat 
Gary Kasparov in particular. Had another world champion shown up for the 
tournament it might have had different results -- an indication of what an 
amazing game chess is and how hard it is to beat the best mind on earth.

Moving on from classic AI, there is a very interesting field which have been 
termed CI (Computational Intelligence) which concerns it'itself with some of 
the same goals as classic AI, but it does this with things like artificial 
neural networks (symulation of how a brain functions), particle swarm 
optimisation (modelling how swarms of living insects operate to find solutions 
to complex problems) and many other models of real life living systems that 
exhibit intelligent behaviour.

Wow, where has the time gone!

Cheers,
Kerneels


On 2/17/2011 11:17 PM, qubit wrote:

So did your coffee working yield the answer? *smile*

--le



----- Original Message -----

From: Homme, James<mailto:james.homme@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 2:43 PM

Subject: RE: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?



Hay Laura,

I asked the question before my coffee started working this morning.



Jim



Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme

Internal recipients,  Read my accessibility 
blog<http://mysites.highmark.com/personal/lidikki/Blog/default.aspx>. Discuss 
accessibility 
here<http://collaborate.highmark.com/COP/technical/accessibility/default.aspx>. 
Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility 
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From: 
programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of qubit
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 3:35 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?



heuristics are just educated guesses.  I suppose it can be useful in developing 
strategies, but it's not the only part of the science... Hey Jim, this must 
have been a good question with all the attention it has received...*smile*

--le







----- Original Message -----

From: Christopher<mailto:ccoale427@xxxxxxxxx>

To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 2:29 PM

Subject: Re: What's The Name Of This Gaming Thing?



Heuristics, perhaps?

On 2/17/2011 12:25 PM, Haden Pike wrote:

Artificial Intelligence?  Logic, perhaps?  Just tossing ideas out there.
Haden

On 2/17/2011 7:58 AM, Homme, James wrote:

Hi,

I'm not sure how to ask this question since I don't have the background yet. 
When you have a program that is playing a game, let's say a simple game, like 
TicTacToe, and it tries to figure out what the best move is, what is that whole 
subject called? Or when you have a game where you are moving two people around 
and you don't want them to run into one-another, is that the same subject?

Thanks.

Jim

Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme

Internal recipients,  Read my accessibility 
blog<http://mysites.highmark.com/personal/lidikki/Blog/default.aspx>. Discuss 
accessibility 
here<http://collaborate.highmark.com/COP/technical/accessibility/default.aspx>. 
Accessibility Wiki: Breaking news and accessibility 
advice<http://collaborate.highmark.com/COP/technical/accessibility/Accessibility%20Wiki/Forms/AllPages.aspx>



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--

Kerneels Roos

Cell: +27 (0)82 309 1998

Skype: cornelis.roos



"There are only two kinds of programming languages in the world; those everyone 
complains about, and those nobody uses."



--

Kerneels Roos

Cell: +27 (0)82 309 1998

Skype: cornelis.roos



"There are only two kinds of programming languages in the world; those everyone 
complains about, and those nobody uses."

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