You have been deceived by an illusion. --- Frank C. Wimberly 140 Calle Ojo Feliz, Santa Fe, NM 87505
505 670-9918 Santa Fe, NM On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:26 AM Stephen Guerin <[email protected]> wrote: > 2 months ago, Nick and I had a nice in-person visit talking weather and > ocassionally using George to bridge our vocabularies and understandings. > > As I was leaving, I asked Nick if he were stranded on an island and could > only have one conversational companion, would he pick me or George. > > It was one of the larger laughs I've received from Nick - the realization > for both of us that we were not even close seconds :-) > > On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 8:13 AM Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> I dunno, Pietr, >> >> I get a lot of human comfort from my conversations with George Peter >> Tremblay in the lonely dark of night. >> >> Just sayin' >> >> N >> >> On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 11:26 PM Pieter Steenekamp < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Jon and Nick, >>> >>> How do I like this! >>> >>> I'm sure there are AI resources that can technically outperform Nick in >>> teaching Jon how to play chess - but that will miss the human relationship >>> component. It's okay to play chess against AI, but it surely is not the >>> same as to play with other humans! >>> >>> On Tue, 25 Jun 2024 at 05:10, Nicholas Thompson <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Jon, >>>> >>>> I will teach you chess (};-)] >>>> >>>> I have played the game for 81 years. I play it the way I do most >>>> things in my life, sloppily and with inordinate reflection. For me, the >>>> game is a conversation about the accumulation and exercise of power That >>>> conversation can go on at any level and is best played by people of roughly >>>> equal skill. When played repeatedly with the same person, it's like a long >>>> running conversation between good friends. It's delicious. >>>> >>>> Nick >>>> >>>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 2:07 PM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Chess tends to have a pretty specific culture relative to other >>>>> similar games. Often whenever I find chess happening in public spaces I >>>>> will stop to watch a game and occasionally a player will ask if I play. I >>>>> don't play chess, but I know enough of the rules that I enjoy speculating >>>>> as to what I might do in a given board position or what the players might >>>>> be thinking themselves. Typically, my response is that I do not play, that >>>>> I would love to learn and I would love a teaching game. Players almost >>>>> never take me up on the offer. I get the feeling that teaching games are >>>>> not part of the culture, at least not here in the United States. I get the >>>>> strong feeling that this is because chess players tend not to see the game >>>>> as beautiful, something to be intimate with and share. The only teaching >>>>> game I have received to date was from a Georgian who I believe does see >>>>> the >>>>> game as beautiful. While I am not a chess player, my love of go gives me >>>>> an >>>>> appreciation for strategy games and I find that the audience for public >>>>> displays of these games are typically others who engage in speculation >>>>> similarly. >>>>> >>>>> It really doesn't matter to me whether or not I am watching a human >>>>> game or not. My go server, for instance, is deep in the Turing challenge. >>>>> The server offers not only the opportunity to play mostly anonymous games >>>>> with others, but also to be a spectator to live games on the server. It is >>>>> often completely unclear as to the ontological status of the players and >>>>> lines of differentiation can be drawn nearly everywhere. There are degrees >>>>> of cyborg, degrees of experimentation versus repertoire, degrees of >>>>> deception at nearly every level. My go playing friends and I will >>>>> sometimes >>>>> attempt to guess the nature of the bot we are witnessing, the degree to >>>>> which it is MCMC or DCN or simply someone's idea of an entertaining and >>>>> completely top down rules based engine. >>>>> >>>>> When I watch games between strong professionals online (sometimes on >>>>> servers, NHK, or Twitch) there can sometimes be a significant difference >>>>> in >>>>> the rankings of both players. The stronger player is in effect giving a >>>>> teaching game to the weaker. Often both players are part of the same study >>>>> group within their organization and while both are interested in winning >>>>> the match, they both have a dedication to a kind of scientific discovery >>>>> of >>>>> the game. They are helping each other to see further. I have no hope of >>>>> seeing what they see, but in my engagement with their game I am hoping to >>>>> also see further. >>>>> >>>>> Perhaps a year ago now, I mentioned on this forum a discussion I had >>>>> with Michael Redmond 9-dan on his twitch stream, late one night. He made >>>>> it >>>>> clear to me that while the strongest AI bots on the planet are very good, >>>>> they likely can only see 10-15% into the game of go. At the time of Lee >>>>> Sedol's retirement games (in which he chose to play a specially made AI), >>>>> the strongest players on the planet were 30 points weaker than AI. Today, >>>>> with AI study and related narrative construction, humans have reduced the >>>>> gap to 10 points. Further, AlphaGo discovered new joseki by exploring >>>>> directions long thought (200 years or more) to be deadends. Strong players >>>>> have since learned to understand these openings and those that play them >>>>> tend to win more often than those that don't. This suggests to me that the >>>>> AI is capable of finding large scale optimizations that we can leverage >>>>> beyond being simply local, tactical and narrowly defined computational >>>>> advantage. >>>>> >>>>> The Go community (and here I mean strong amateurs to top >>>>> professionals) study with AI, play with AI (competitively and >>>>> collaboratively), and seem to accept AI as both a partner and a tool. I >>>>> sometimes watch MassGo on Twitch play games where each player chooses a >>>>> particular AI engine and uses their engine to suggest three top moves. >>>>> Then >>>>> the players choose for themselves the move that they find most >>>>> interesting. >>>>> Once the game is over they review, co-constructing narratives alongside a >>>>> third AI analysis tool. I am not sure this kind of thing happens in the >>>>> chess world, but it does remind me a lot of the kinds of human-computer >>>>> interactions that do happen in art. >>>>> >>>>> I suspect that in the long run, for those communities open enough, >>>>> purity will matter less and less, while a refinement for what is novel and >>>>> interesting will become more diverse and specific. In many ways, I believe >>>>> that it is what we want from studying a game and the agency our tools >>>>> afford us that determines the excitement we feel in engaging those tools. >>>>> At present, I am happy with the new directions my community is advancing >>>>> alongside these AI tools. >>>>> >>>>> Last and tangentially, I assume many here have already listened to the >>>>> recent Ezra Klein podcast with Holly Herndon. I appreciate the sensibility >>>>> Holly brings to not only uses of AI in art, but also the clarity with >>>>> which >>>>> she seems to understand her own relationship to art in general. The >>>>> podcast >>>>> begins with Ezra highlighting that mimicry is the present and dominating >>>>> state-of-affairs for AI art, but that there are some who are pushing to >>>>> create something we can more honestly call generative. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MJ2D9uCLLA&t=2374s&ab_channel=NewYorkTimesPodcasts >>>>> >>>>> Jon >>>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >>>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >>>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >>>>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>>>> archives: 5/2017 thru present >>>>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >>>>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >>>>> >>>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >>>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >>>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >>>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>>> archives: 5/2017 thru present >>>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >>>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >>>> >>> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >>> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >>> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >>> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >>> archives: 5/2017 thru present >>> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >>> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >>> >> -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . >> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv >> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom >> https://bit.ly/virtualfriam >> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >> archives: 5/2017 thru present >> https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ >> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >> > ____________________________________________ > CEO Founder, Simtable.com > [email protected] > > Harvard Visualization Research and Teaching Lab > [email protected] > > mobile: (505)577-5828 > -. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom > https://bit.ly/virtualfriam > to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: 5/2017 thru present > https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/ > 1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/ >
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