--- In [email protected], Darryl Francis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > There's a short piece in the new New Scientist journal (13 January) > entitled "Robot learns to play dirty". See: > http://tinyurl.com/yxw4uh > > Part of the article says: > "Adding in this 'opponent modelling' greatly improved the program's > game, allowing it to beat Quackle, one of the best conventional > Scrabble programs, by five points on average." > > Would the Quackle authors care to comment?
I'm not a Quackle author, but I'll comment anyway. http://tinyurl.com/yxw4uh is typical of the kind of garbage you see when a non-scientist writes a report about a scientific publication. The actual program being reported on was derived by modifying Quackle so that it can perform inferences. It is a great example of how open source projects can lead to unexpected benefits. The authors of the paper made no bold claims, backed up all of their assertions, and behaved completely correctly in all respects. I have to be very disappointed with the way New Scientist misrepresented their work. Sapphire Brand
