Schaeffer One Jump Ahead

Challenging Human Supremacy in Checkers
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4757-2733-3
Verlag: Springer US
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 1 - PDF Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 496 Seiten, eBook

Why did I write this book? I'm still not sure. After all, I'm a researcher, which means I think I know how to write technical papers. But writing for a n- technical audience is something I know nothing about. It took a lot of effort before I could force myself to sit down to write the first word. Once I did, however, it was hard not to stop! When I started this project, I didn't know that I had a lot to say and, in some sense, the results show this. The book is much longer than I even imagined it would be. Worse yet is that there is a lot of material that I decided not to include. It's a good thing that the publishers decided to limit how long the book could be! However, after much soul searching, I think I now know the reasons why I wrote this book. First and foremost, this book tells an interesting story. It's about the life of a checkers-playing computer program, Chinook, from its creation in 1989 to its retirement in 1996. In reality the story revolves around two people with different views of the program. As the creator of Chinook, I wanted to push the program to become the best player in the world, in much the same way that a father might encourage his son to excel at sports.

Zielgruppe

Popular/general

Autoren/Hrsg.

Schaeffer, Jonathan

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I Can’t Lose.- The Opening.- 1 This Was Going to Be Easy.- 2 Bottomless Well.- The Middlegame.- 3 Valuable Lessons.- 4 The Illusion of Intelligence.- 5 A Nobel Turing Trio.- 6 Didn’t Samuel Solve That Game?.- 7 The Case for the Prosecution.- 8 As Close to Perfection As Humanly Possible.- 9 You Look Like a Checkers Player.- 10 The Fudge Factor.- 11 I Feel Like a Teenager Again.- 12 Gentlemen, Start Your Engines.- 13 Trust Me.- 14 A Wake-Up Call.- 15 Prelude to Disaster.- 16 Programmed by God.- 17 Divine Intervention.- 18 Dissension Among the Ranks.- 19 Home Away From Home.- 20 It’s a Draw!.- 21 Let Me Suggest the Unthinkable.- The Endgame.- 22 Gentlemen’s Agreement.- 23 I’m Ready to Go.- 24 Get a Life, Jonathan.- Epilogue.- Appendix A: Further Reading.- Appendix B: Tinsley’s Record.- Appendix C: Tinsley’s Losses.- Appendix D: Chinook’s Record.- Appendix E: Chinook Technical Specifications.- Appendix F: Tinsley-Chinook Games.