Very well said Jacques. I agree with everything you said. A couple of comment below.
On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 12:02 +0100, Jacques Basaldúa wrote: > Except for the relation between not finding 9x9 games > which is *not* real go, you can find as many 19x19 games > as you want, I agree with Chrilly. I'll bet there have been millions of 9x9 games by very strong players, they are probably just not readily accessible. > Let's accept it. We are amateurs, all except those who > are paid by some University to research on go. And even > some of them are, because a serious go project takes many > years and some have one semester. We have other jobs and > (at least myself) try to work less for the money and dedicate > 20 hours per week to go programming. We would be very happy > to work 60 hours a week on go programming if someone else > paid the bills, but that's not the case. I my opinion, the > most important software project of the decade, i.e. > writing a non-Microsoft _compatible_ operating system, is > called wine http://www.winehq.org/ and also looks amateurish. > (I don't really know who works there.) 3D studio and other > successful projects started as amateur job, so there is nothing > wrong in being amateurs. I use wine but I personally don't place a great deal of importance on it. I put linux as the single most important amateur project (at least as it started that way) because it is an open source high quality operating system that competes favorably with it's only serious competitor, non-free Unix. Wine is important - no question about it - because the marketing genius behind Windows has created a huge software base. Some of this software is high quality stuff that linux users are even willing to use. > There is no program today which is so much better than free > programs that is worth paying for it, so we can't blame > the users. We should blame ourselves for not being able to > write a program that is worth its price. I think computer Go could take off if it were promoted correctly. I don't think it was a complete coincidence that 9x9 computer GO really took off when Nick Wedd starting having monthly computer tournaments and later when CGOS went up. CGOS was created by the computer Go community - a response to a strong desire in the community to have something like it. It provides competition, instant feedback and to a certain extent a sense of status or reward for accomplishing something good. The progress has been enormous in a short time. When CGOS went up I think the strongest program was about 1700 by the CGOS scale. But now 1700 is a pretty mediocre rating on CGOS! I was completely astounded because I did not believe 2000 would be attained any time in the near future - but even 2000 is a modest rating on CGOS now. The progress would still of course be there without CGOS, because the Monte Carlo paradigm was alive before CGOS. But 9x9 would have remained basically unmeasured except in invisible private testing. One might have heard claims of advancements and papers would be written but with such things you almost always have to trust the paper author and his statistics. There is little or no independent verification of results possible. If we want to see rapid 19x19 progress, we need these 3 elements: 1. competition 2. feedback 3. status. This is what something like CGOS provides. The rating and rank provides status and of course the competition is intense and the feedback is instant. Also, it's hard to beg-off when you have something fairly visible like CGOS. If you have a strong commercial program, and you are in the business of making money, it's very tempting to rest on your laurels. You can advertise victories and championships but once you have obtained them, playing in further competitions risks spoiling your reputation (and thus your income.) But with something like CGOS a program like Mogo has bragging rights. It's possible one of the commercial programs is better than Mogo, or perhaps another amateur program is better. But in most peoples minds, Mogo is the best at 9x9 because it was willing to take the risk on CGOS (in all likelihood, it really IS the best and few doubt this.) There are many reasons you might NOT play on CGOS or in tournaments, but most people will probably believe (whether true or not) that you have nothing substantial to show. Of course you simply may not care and that's ok. But you can't make viable claims unless you show up at tournaments, or play on CGOS or in some way take the necessary risks to prove what you have. Tournaments are quite useful and provide visibility and status, but they are infrequent, a very high investment in time and expense for programmers and to be quite frank, they don't really make clear who the best player really is. Any good program has a chance to win a tournament. Here is what we need in order to achieve a Dan level 19x19 player within a couple of years in my opinion: COMPETITION Not once a year, but constant. A very high profile occasional competition however is still a great and useful thing to have. FEEDBACK You need to always know where you stand so you can constantly be goal oriented. Where you stand in relation to others that is. STATUS There must be some kind of recognition, highly visible acknowledgment of the pecking order to stimulate and motivate the competitors. I think all of these things are far more important that getting PAID. However, money can help if it's used to generate STATUS. We would have Dan level 19x19 players within a couple of years if the following could be done to promote 19x19 computer programs: Something like CGOS - but much classier and higher profile. Monetary compensation (highly advertised) for achieving certain levels. The only purpose this would play, in my opinion, is to add to the status of the venue. I don't think the money by itself is a strong motivator to put so much work into something like this although some will be motivated more than other by money. Name recognition - where program authors get credit for their achievements. Once money and status come into the picture big time, then cheating will start to play a major role. To avoid this, a wealthy benefactor, would provide the venue - a well advertised compensation scale for achievement, a publicly visible test site where programs compete CGOS style but the programs would have to be on-site. So there would need to be a registration process where programs were screened and then sent to the testing warehouse. There should also be an open forum similar to CGOS where anybody could log on and compete and this could be used as a way to qualify for the "closed" venue and allow for people to get their feet wet with the system, test their program, etc. Qualifying to play in the closed venue would also provide recognition and status. This is the fastest way to Dan level play in my opinion. Not that I think such a scenario is likely to happen but it could if some wealthy sponsor(s) who had a lot of money to throw around were willing to make it happen. I hope it doesn't sound "vain" to think that people are only motivated by a sense of self-importance and status. I don't see it in quite those vulgar terms. However, it's well known that people enjoy and deserve a little recognition for a job well done. If you reward programmers in this way - give them a little visibility and praise, they will accomplish amazing things. Most of us are self-motivated. We do this because we love it. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't respond to something like the above program. I also have to say that Nick Wedd's monthly tournaments are critically important and unquestionably a big part of the sudden progress in computer GO. I think those tournaments and CGOS complement each other in a beautiful way. Probably more credit goes to Nick Wedd's tournaments than CGOS. Those tournament inspired CGOS and they also motivated (in my opinion) a lot of progress in computer chess before CGOS was even up and running. But they do complement each other - CGOS provides instrumentation that KGS is lacking. > Also, I don't even doubt that the day computer go can challenge > the strongest pro player, the media will understand the importance > of the event. (In fact, computer go is already in the media: The > Economist, The Times, Scientific American, Abcnews, Reuters, have > all written articles in 2007.) And companies will understand that > if they want their names related to a historical event like that > with no possible repetition in the future, something like the > first man on the moon, they will have to pay for it. The money > payed for deep blue will be like comparing 1950s with 2007s > football contracts. "Go is played only by a small freak community." > That's not true. Like chess players were admired in the previous > century as superintelligent human beings and today no one is > interested in chess except the chess community. Go still keeps the > "supreme form of intelligence" myth. And after go, there is void. > Of course, you can always invent new games, but you cannot invent > millenary games with millions of players. > > Someone is going to make millions with this. Don't know when, don't > know how. I wish I knew ;-) The venue I propose could probably be arranged to generate a great deal of income for the investors. Does anyone want to write up a business plan :-) - Don > > Jacques. > _______________________________________________ > computer-go mailing list > computer-go@computer-go.org > http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/ _______________________________________________ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
