
Can Chess Survive Artificial Intelligence? - pseudolus
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/can-chess-survive-artificial-intelligence
======
vfc1
Chess is today more popular than ever, with online playing platforms like
chess.com or lichess.org, where you can find an opponent in seconds and easily
analyze the game afterwards.

The short time formats like Rapid 15 minutes with 10 seconds increment per
move is my favorite, but the most popular format is Blitz, which is say 5
minutes with 5 seconds increment.

You can play even bullet of 2 minutes with 1 second increment, or even no
increment formats. You can play chess anywhere, at the bus stop, in the
dentist office, take video lessons, do practical drills, puzzles.

Via the rating system, you are always matched to an opponent of near-
equivalent strength. The rating system is build so that a 200 point difference
means that the higher-rated player will on average win 3 out of 4.

Most opponents are less than 100 points apart, so it's typically a 50/50
chance that you will win a given game.

Chess only looks dull for those who don't play it, it can be super exciting.
But the classical format, with a physical board, and 5 hour games? I think
that will become less and less of a thing.

~~~
michalu
On the contrary I promised myself to only play chess over the physical board.

Playing online started to feel like an addiction. Most people end up playing
blitz or rapid which even reinforces the addictive behaviour. Over time I felt
like there's not much difference in the way I play chess to playing any other
online game.

But there's nothing better than meeting a friend in a cafe and have a good
game over the board.

Such game forces you to focus even more because you have that friendly rivalry
going on and you've been keeping a score. I can imagine real competitions are
even more intense.

That's something different than playing against some anonymous nickname
online.

Paul Morphy said "ability to play chess is a sign of a gentleman. The ability
to play chess well is a sign of a wasted life"

I personally get much more of what I expect from chess when playing in person.
Playing online has become a compulsive behaviour and quite a meaningless
activity once you reach certain level in ratings - the point when you learned
the most chess can teach you about life and strategy but getting better
requires harder and harder work while lower and lower return other than
bettering your ratings.

So no, for me the classical format must live on else chess will become
replaceable.

PS: I encourage everyone to grab a board, go to the nearest cafe or wherever,
open a nice bottle of your favourite beverage and have some good battle with a
friend over the board.

~~~
6thaccount2
I have a decent amount of friends. Of the ones who live nearby, none play
chess.

There are some chess players in my city, but I haven't the time for that level
of commitment.

Playing online via an app with up to 24 hours per move and in-app chatting is
best for me. Sure the person can cheat, but I assume most would rather play
fairly and win of their own accord rather than a meaningless win via cheating.

~~~
michalu
I got a friend of mine into chess. First, I beat him easily.

Turned out he's competitive and while I was abroad for 6 months he trained
hard to beat me.

When I got back the games became competitive and while playing chess we ended
up having a business idea and we started a business.

Now 6 months later it earns both of us about what's an average salary here +
pays another employee.

He in turn played his cousin while I was away. They got together after since
childhood and started going rafting and other adventures.

I know a bunch of stories like that.

All sorts of things can happen that won't happen online. Of course I played
online too, and them also ... to improve.

I think even if you think you don't have friends it's good to just play
anybody who's down for it. Or join a chess club generally inquire who knows
chess when you meet some new cool people.

------
marcelluspye
A great example at how computers affect chess commentary is the currently
ongoing tournament in St. Louis. On youtube, the game is broadcast by people
using an engine to evaluate the position they're looking at, and on twitch,
two grandmasters are providing commentary without an engine. The youtube
stream can be easier to follow, but it takes some of the drama out when the
story appears to be "look at this guy, missing the best move when he's #4 in
the world, how could this happen?" for every game. On the other hand, the
grandmasters' commentary might be closer to what the players are actually
thinking (what would be deemed "human moves"), but sometimes even they aren't
sure what exactly is going on.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub](https://www.youtube.com/user/STLChessClub)
[https://www.twitch.tv/stlchessclub](https://www.twitch.tv/stlchessclub)

~~~
thom
It's a shame Alejando Ramirez isn't on comms for this one, as I think he's the
main draw for STL commentary for me - extremely well versed in current theory,
able to balance human and computer analysis perfectly, and (with all the love
in the world) doesn't bumble about as much as Yasser Seirawan.

Of course, the dream team remains Jan Gustafsson and Peter Svidler over on
Chess24 when they're able to get together:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6aP-
wa1q20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6aP-wa1q20)

~~~
marcelluspye
Ramirez is doing the twitch stream, though you're right that he was able to
balance out how the computer analysis affected his commentary. OTOH, I felt
that as an event dragged on, he'd rely more and more on the machine to tell
the story of the game. Conversely, it'd be nice if they made Maurice Ashley
comment without the engine for a while, maybe he'd have more interesting
things to say again.

------
PeterStuer
The 'AI beats worldchampion in ...' is a story that has diminishing newsvalue
as time progresses as people will just come to expect this to be the case.

Competitive games survive AI not because humans are a good match to the AI,
but because people like playing other people, or watch humans playing each
other. A Dota 2 championship does not wane in interest because there exists an
AI model that can beat most human teams. Cycling races did survive the advent
of the motorcycle just fine.

What does change is the scrutiny that needs to be deployed for catching
fraudsters using automation assistance in human competitions. But is looking
out for a hidden computer or communications device in a chess tournament
different from looking for hidden motors in a cycling race?

~~~
pingyong
>A Dota 2 championship does not wane in interest because there exists an AI
model that can beat most human teams.

I just want to make this clear, because it's something that a lot of people
misunderstand, there exists no such AI currently. Not even close. What exists
is an AI that can play with and against 17 out of 115 heroes, which allows a
tiny fraction of the possible hero combinations, and those 17 heroes are
specifically chosen because they are relatively AI-friendly. This AI is also
only extremely strong if you're not allowed to repeatedly play against it and
figure out 1. where the AI is exploitable and 2. what picks/items/playstyles
are even good in this 17 hero meta that no human has ever given much thought
before. Plus, as it stands now, the AI has quite the interface advantage,
since it doesn't just get the rendered screen as an input, but the internal
game values through an API - which allows much more precise reactions.

I'm not saying that the OpenAI achievement isn't great, it absolutely is and I
enjoyed the matches quite a lot (even if I don't really play DotA 2), but we
are a long, long way from AI supremacy in DotA 2. And if we reach it, we have
no idea how it is going to influence the popularity of DotA 2 competitions.
After all, younger people playing chess now already grew up with the idea that
they will never be able to even come close to the strength of a computer, but
DotA 2 players have seen bots as useless pushovers for all their lives.

~~~
PeterStuer
You are absolutely right and I did not mean to say that the current OpenAI
Five today can beat most human teams in a full DotA 2 game. My point is I do
not believe the eventual existence of such an AI player would impact the
interest in Human to Human competitions, either as players or as spectators,
for that game.

------
dragontamer
Yes, but its in a new form.

Hardcore "no rules bared" chess is correspondence chess, where you have
24-hours between moves and can use whatever means necessary to make the best
move.

If you think just buying a supercomputer and running Stockfish (or LeelaZero)
will win, then you don't know anything about opening databases. All the good
correspondance chess players have already run Stockfish / LeelaZero across
many different openings, and have collected statistics on which openings will
lead to situations where Stockfish (or LeelaZero, or Komodo, etc. etc) will
inevitably fail.

These computer AI chess programs have weaknesses. A "Cyborg" team, composed of
a human guiding Stockfish (or LeelaZero) through opening books can get further
than any computer alone, and likely push the opponent into a subtly failing
position.

\-------

The article talks about it a bit in Centaur Chess section. That's probably
where the biggest challenge lies in the future. Centaurs have access to the
8-man database, you keep opening-books secret, and you spend time studying how
Stockfish, Leela Zero, or Komodo (or other engines) makes mistakes.

Or, you write your own engine, and try to use that as an edge.

~~~
tutfbhuf
> These computer AI chess programs have weaknesses.

> ... have collected statistics on which openings will lead to situations
> where Stockfish (or LeelaZero, or Komodo, etc. etc) will inevitably fail.

In case of Stockfish and other "conventional" engines, yes.

However, with engines like LeelaZero those weaknesses gets much harder to
exploit, since you can create your own version of Lc0 by training a new model
with tensorflow.

~~~
dragontamer
LeelaZero struggles with endgames. I'd probably use LeelaZero through the
beginning and middle games, but switch to Stockfish whenever I feel like a
tactical situation comes up, especially if the position starts to drop down to
10-man or 9-man. 7-man Syzygy Tablebase are less than 10TB, a RAID-array of
M.2 drives will access those quickly. If Stockfish evaluates any 8-man trade,
it will simplify into a 7-man situation and you have guaranteed perfection
after that.

No one knows how to integrate the endgame tablebases into LeelaZero by the
way. So if we both play LeelaZero for the first 40 moves, but I switch to
Stockfish + 7-man Tablebase for the ending, I'm probably going to beat you.
LeelaZero's endgame really is quite weak.

\---------

If you are a programmer, and can figure out how to integrate the Neural-Net
evaluation into MCTS to evaluate tablebases, you probably would do great. Its
currently unsolved (to my knowledge).

It seems solvable... I don't see any reason why MCTS couldn't have a
if(popcnt(bitboard) < 8) doTablebase() statement somewhere. The question is
how to do it as quickly as possible, and how to do it asynchronously and
integrate the statistics to the rest of the MCTS tree.

BTW: A research team has created the 8-man Tablebase, although it takes
probably 100s of TB to store. This means that 8-man Tablebases will remain as
Hard-drive only for now.

------
phonebucket
> The impact of computer chess on the game — as still played by humans — has
> been twofold. First, computers have helped to flatten chess, increasing pure
> understanding of the game at the expense of creativity, mystery, and
> dynamism. Second, they have become intertwined with every aspect of chess,
> from play at the highest level to amateur study and the spectator’s
> experience.

This speaks more about the players than computers. It is still very possible
to play ‘human’ chess at an extremely high level. Look at the number of London
systems at the top level, the way Carlsen decides to play a Czech Benoni
against a lesser grandmaster. He won that game out of human skill, not
computer mastery.

The human element of chess is alive and well. The computerisation of chess
started to sky rocket when computers and humans were at similarish playing
strengths. As computers have far overtaken humans at chess now, I think chess
will start to humanise itself once more.

------
Grustaf
Will the 100 m dash survive the car?

~~~
jobigoud
I think it's different. In physical sports, we already have categories,
because we have to overcome physical limitations. For example we have
separated human sprinting into Male and Female categories forever. In boxing
or martial arts we even have weight categories. So you can be good "for a
woman" and it doesn't carry much stigma.

For chess, it's supposed to be a purely intellectual game, and even though
there are categories, the top women can play with the top men. This wouldn't
make sense in 100m dash where the Women world's record is beaten by highschool
boys.

Essentially this places the entire human species in a second-tier category.
Human champions are now good, "for a human". Humans are in the lower league
and we must make sure they only play between each other because of their
inferior cognitive capabilities. They are no longer competing for the genuine
title of best chess player in the World, they wouldn't even qualify to enter
the tournament. The World best human in history can be beaten by the
equivalent of a highschooler machine player.

~~~
mytailorisrich
I think the comparison with the 100m dash is very apt.

We have machines that can obviously beat any human runner but the point of the
race is to race other humans, not machines.

The point and fun of chess will remain to play against other humans.

~~~
Kaveren
Cars don't change how humans run. Computer chess does change how humans play.
While yes, the interesting part is watching humans play humans, the concern is
that computers will influence players, be it in chess or competitive
videogames, into less interesting play. I think that's a real concern as
artificial intelligence improves, though right now I don't think it's a
problem.

~~~
thom
Yeah, a better comparison would be the triathlon, if instead of one part being
on a bike, you instead got a motorbike and every year new tech made that
faster. Sure you still have 2/3 down to humans but 1/3 is sort of automated.

But as you say, this doesn't seem to be an issue currently, and 2019 has been
quite exciting in classical chess. I think right now there are more potential
openings on the table than any time this century, as new engines (re)introduce
lines that Stockfish didn't think highly of, and that can continue for quite a
while.

~~~
Grustaf
Surely people don’t use computers WHILE playing? So it’s like having the coach
ride in the car, yelling at the runner while he practices. Quite innocuous.

~~~
thom
Sure, and remembering 20 moves of computer prep in various different lines is
a skill in itself, and knowing _which_ lines to prep or innovate in is part of
the metagame. But it still feels a _bit_ unnatural, no?

~~~
Grustaf
Well yes, but not really much different from memorising openings from a book.
Personally I find all kinds of professional sports and competition a bit
boring, it was more fun when people were amateurs.

------
caymanjim
I imagine there will come a point where algorithmic chess (I wouldn't call it
AI) results in perfect play, where every match ends as a draw. Much like the
scene in War Games where the computer plays tic-tac-toe against itself and
every game ends in a draw. Given sufficient resources, and the fact that there
is no chance at all in chess (save choosing who moves first), it seems to me
it's only a matter of time before every move is the perfect move. That would
mean one of two things: either every game ends in a draw, or every game ends
with white winning.

The end result of this is that every game will be the same. Given two
effectively infinitely-skilled computer players, there's no more game to play.
There's always a best move, and the best one could hope for is the draw (or,
again, white would always win; I'm not sure if it's been proven that first
move guarantees a win with perfect play--but it's one case or the other).

Human vs. human will remain a compelling game, both for players and observers,
but computer-vs-computer will cease to be interesting at all. As will human-
vs-computer, except maybe as a way to see who can survive the longest before
losing or drawing; no human can win against the best computers even today, and
never will again.

~~~
arkadiyt
> I'm not sure if it's been proven that first move guarantees a win with
> perfect play

It has not, chess is an unsolved game:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solving_chess)

~~~
jobigoud
In this scenario human vs human is not very compelling when all they do is
make mistakes. The only analysis left is how bad their mistakes are.

~~~
seanhunter
There are positions in chess that have been disputed for decades or more which
are just now coming alive because of the ability of engines to analyse lines.
The thing that's interesting about high-level chess is how players play out
particular strategic themes that result from known positions (eg initiative vs
material, the open H file for white in the London system vs not being able to
castle kingside, play in the center versus counterplay on the flanks etc etc
etc).

My recommendation would be watch a really good game analysis like Agadmator's
youtube channel. One like this might be fun to start
[https://youtu.be/vztVylqnBSo](https://youtu.be/vztVylqnBSo) or one of the
Capablanca vs Lasker games. Alternatively John Bartholomew and Eric Rosen have
fun channels where they play and commentate on their thought process.

~~~
Bantros
Good to see Agadmator getting a shout out

------
thom
I personally think this is an extremely exciting time in chess, especially
when you take into account the surprising amount of doom and gloom that
occurred around the World Championship. We've recently moved from long, boring
theoretical battles in the Berlin or Petrov to revive various lines in the
Sicilian, and Magnus Carlsen's classical revival since retaining his title
seems to be based on very interesting positional sacrifices, instead of just
grinding out wins from mostly-equal positions as he may have done in the past.
It's hard not to want to acknowledge the invisible hand of AlphaZero (and
indeed Leela) in these changes. I'd like to think that opening theory is going
to go through something of a renaissance as more top players get access to
these new engines with a better long term strategic sense of the game. It's
hard to believe we're going to run out of new, interesting positions in our
lifetimes.

Between those changes at the board, and the wider changes of people pushing
chess as an esport, and growing prize pools from St Louis and the Grand Prix
circuit, there's never been a better time to be a player or fan at any level
of the game.

------
soup10
The answer to the question is yes, most chess players have accepted computers
play the game better and don't care. High level chess will eventually just
change the rules if forced drawing lines make it too dull.

~~~
z_open
> High level chess will eventually just change the rules if forced drawing
> lines make it too dull.

If it hasn't happened already, it may never. People were complaining of the
draw death of chess decades ago, and it's worse now than ever.

------
lkjhdcba
My personal theory as to why chess isn't that popular in the US - and why the
US produces _relatively_ few world-class players given its very large talent
pool - is that chess at a high level involves a large number of draws. The
last championship was entirely bloodless in the main games and had to go to
tiebreaks (rapid + blitz games). At IM+ level more than half of games end with
draws. And this goes contrary to the US mentality where everyone is either a
'winner' or a 'loser' and competition is seen as a highest ideal. A game where
most of the time it is impossible to tell the better player must feel
frustrating to amateurs. And indeed, many many _many_ times some laymen will
complain that there are 'too many draws' and 'the rules must be changed' so
spectators see some blood.

Another common complaint related to draws is the number of 'grandmaster
draws', or 'comfort draws', whereby two players, usually at a high level,
agree to leave it at that after a low number of moves (Chess is one of the few
games featuring 'draw by agreement', meaning both players may agree to a draw
at any point in the game without justification). Almost every grandmaster is
guilty of that, and players who do that often get derided by their coaches,
the media and amateurs: how dare you, you are a disgrace to the sport, I
didn't pay to watch this, etc. I daresay the complainers are either
hypocritical or have never been involved in high-level long-form tournaments
(7+ days of 4+ hour games each plus rapid/blitz side events etc.). Sometimes
both players feel tired and don't want to play it out (usually due to _having
played it out_ 6+ hours the game before) and objecting to that is just
unrealistic. Chess isn't a gladiatoral arena. Then there are the famous
accusations of collusion from Fischer against his Soviet counterparts but
Fischer has always been slightly mad his whole life so I wouldn't take
anything he said seriously.

------
ivanhoe
It's a bit like asking if athletics will survive the cars, because no one can
outrun a car. Well, as long as you play chess against other humans AI is
irrelevant, isn't it?

~~~
astrobe_
Anyone can outrun a car... In a sufficiently dense forest. AI always have had
this problem that reality is a very dense forest.

------
rjf72
This article misses the actual problem. It suggests that computers are
gradually yielding a perfection of play which is implied to lead to a draw.
But that's not really what's happening. In fact computer chess now already has
fewer draws than top level human chess. The issue is that chess is
unimaginably vast. The article talks about people having the first 15 moves
prepared. That's true, and false. In each position there are somewhere around
30 legal moves on average and 3-4 decent moves. That means after just the
first 15 moves there are 3.5^30 reasonable moves to explore. That's 20
quadrillion reasonable options. And obviously the entire search space, 30^30
is rather larger.

No human has explored more than a minuscule fraction of that domain, and today
computers are already much stronger than the strongest humans. In times past
this was not such a big deal. You play what looks good or promising, and even
once you get outside of your preparation it'll still be human against human
or, at worst, human against team of humans. But this is where computers now
come in. Now if you enter into a complex position that your opponent has
analyzed with a computer and you haven't, you stand a very real chance of
losing without your opponent ever having to think for himself or you having
any real chance.

As a result of this players are increasingly preferring lines which tend to be
very "solid" with much less room for your opponent to find 'surprise moves' or
novelties. And even if they happen to find such a move you stand a good chance
of being able to somewhat safely navigate the waters since the position is,
again, "solid." The problem should be obvious. This sort of chess is
_extremely_ prone to draws.

\---

You can even see this in chess events when a player loses. Modern world
championship matches are very short (usually 12 games). So a single loss is
huge because you just don't have much time to catch up. As a result once a
player loses the calculus of the match significantly changes and now even if
you do get caught out - well you were going to lose anyway. And so the players
will put aside computer fears and return to more 'traditional' views of chess.
And as a result you often see a decisive game end up being followed by another
decisive game. At worst one decisive game is often followed by much more
interesting games.

This is one of the reasons there have been suggestions like returning to draw
odds in favor of the champion (as used to be the case in some matches). Now a
days instead to resolve draws in the slow chess we go to increasingly rapid
time controls and even, at the extreme end, a times-odd game where black gets
draw odds. As variance ostensibly becomes larger in those sort of games, the
challenger is often happy to just draw the probably stronger champion in slow
chess and hope to get lucky in the fast tie-breaks. Other ideas have been to
play the tie-breaks _before_ the real match starts, or to have a tie-break for
every single game so they're always decisive. Again, it's always the same goal
- to remove drawing as an acceptable outcome for at least one of the players.

You can also see this exact affect even in tournament events. When there is no
leader all the games tend to be draw heavy because the calculus is directed
towards the value of 'not losing' over winning. But once a player starts to
pull ahead of the pack, the calculus starts to change more towards winning.
And so one player winning ends up triggering a cascade of decisive games or,
again, at worst much more interesting games.

\---

The problem isn't computers - it's fear of computers and somehow removing the
value of draws in chess. But nobody's found any really great way to solve
these problems.

~~~
dragontamer
> removing the value of draws in chess

Armageddon chess (Black wins in all draws) is one such solution, although it
leads to a major Black advantage.

But there are 4-kinds of draws: Repetition, Stalemate, Insufficient Material,
and 50-moves. No other draws exist in chess.

Perhaps instead of giving Black a win in all kinds of draws, maybe Black
should win in two or three of the draws (Black wins on Stalemate and
Insufficient Material), while White wins on Repetition and 50-moves.

This suggestion hasn't been studied yet. But it seems like the natural
progression after Armageddon chess.

Note: This is not my idea, but one being discussed somewhere else. Its
interesting though, so I like it.

------
dsjoerg
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

