Russel makes a mistake at 30:00 when he says computers are "totally unable to play checkers". Excerpt from J Schaeffer et al (2007). Checkers is Solved:
>In this paper we announce that checkers
has been weakly solved. From the starting position (Fig. 1, top), we have a computational proof
that checkers is a draw. The proof consists of an
explicit strategy that never loses — the program
can achieve at least a draw against any opponent,
playing either the black or white pieces.
Not the focus of the talk, just thought I'd point it out.
What he meant is that an AI built for playing chess cannot play checkers. The software for solving checkers is also equally useless in the context of chess.
The distinction here is that there is no general purpose AI in existence. All the surprising leaps have been customized for specific tasks.
>In this paper we announce that checkers has been weakly solved. From the starting position (Fig. 1, top), we have a computational proof that checkers is a draw. The proof consists of an explicit strategy that never loses — the program can achieve at least a draw against any opponent, playing either the black or white pieces.
Not the focus of the talk, just thought I'd point it out.