lab@qubix.UUCP (07/18/83)
I hardly consider a one-inning baseball game a decent analogy to a backgammon match, particularly a match decided 7-1. One VERY interesting aspect about the program is the move it made from the position indicated on the cover of Scientific American wherein the article was contained. The move surprised the experts, but they unanimously concluded that it was indeed best - but not one of them would have thought of playing it! +3 for the machine. (I wouldn't put money on the rematch.)
WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA (07/19/83)
From: Wilkins <WILKINS@SRI-AI.ARPA> "decvax!decwrl!qubix!lab"@Ucb-Vax: "I hardly consider a one-inning baseball game a decent analogy to a backgammon match, particularly a match decided 7-1." You seem to be implying that a lop-sided score like 7-1 has something to say about the relative merit of the players involved in the match. If so, you know little about the vagaries of the dice, probability, or how much luck is involved in backgammon. In fact, it would be harder for a lesser baseball team to win a one-inning game by any margin (baseball being much more a game of skill than backgammon) than it would be for a lesser backgammon player to win a match 7-1 or 7-0, so my analogy gives the benefit of the doubt. The FACT is that the program is not even a strong intermediate backgammon player, and people that try to make more out of it because of this 7-1 score simply do not understand how meaningless this isolated data point is. David Wilkins P.S. Could the moderator fix the mailing list so I don't get a bunch of "this mail non-deliverable" messages back every time I send something? Thanks. -------