Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Dave, Thank you for taking the time giving me these advices. I will give you my opinion about your last point first, beacause I think it is the most important point, stressing out what I really wish to achieve with this project. I am perfectly aware that I am very naive and bold in my approach to tackle this problem. That's the point. My project is not really a computer-go project, it hasn't much to do with AI. It's about natural selection only, the go game is a pretext. As such, my intent is not to express my art in evolving an artificial neural network, it is to give my players the same opportunities that our DNA ancestors had a few billion years ago. With that in mind, here is how I feel with the other points you mentionned : - testing with smaller board would be wise indeed, and I am running a single 9x9 ecosystem (opengo don't support smaller board), the problem being that I only have limited ressource and I think it is way funnier to evolve real go players than ersatz practice-level contestants. Beside, if my approach ever give any result, there is much meta-evolution that needs to occur first (evolution about the efficiency of evolution), and this will probably take as much time on a small board, this time being totally lost when/if I try to scale-up. - I will sure try to test it against other computer-go player. I have to implement a GTP interface to my players, this is on my TODO list. - There is, in theory, a way for any intern function to duplicate and be used elsewhere through the definition of genes in my neural network. The players will have to find out how to use this. And yes, I intend the players to find by themselves about the simplest go principle, I think this is what evolution is best at (you now, actually evolving). Ernest Galbrun On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 20:52, dhillism...@netscape.net wrote: Ernest, Fun stuff! I have a co-evolved neural net that used to play on KGS as “Antbot9x9”. I use the same net in the progressive widening part of my MCTS engine. I would guess that many people experiment along these lines but they rarely report results. Here are some suggestions that might be relevant: - If you test your approach on smaller board sizes you can get results orders of magnitude faster. 7x7 would be a good starting size. (If you use 5x5, make sure your super-ko handling is rock solid first.) - Take the strongest net at every generation and bench mark it against one or more computer opponents to measure progress over time. Suitable computer opponents would be light playouts (random), heavy playouts (a bit tougher), Wally (there’s nothing quite like getting trounced by the infamous Wally to goad one into a new burst of creativity), and Gnugo. When you have a net you like, it can play against other bots online at CGOS and get a ranking. - Use a hierarchical architecture, or weight sharing or something to let your GA learn general principles that apply everywhere on the board. A self-atari move on one spot is going to be roughly as bad as on any other spot. You probably don’t want your GA to have to learn not to move into self-atari independently for every space on the board. - Use the “mercy rule” to end games early when one color has an overwhelming majority of the stones on the board. - Feed the net some simple features. To play well, it will have to be able to tell if a move would be self-atari, a rescue from atari, a capturing move,… Unless you think it might not need these after all, do you really want to wait for the net to learn things that are trivial to pre-calculate? You are probably reluctant to feed it any features at all. As a motivating exercise, you could try having the GA evolve a net to calculate one of those features directly. - GA application papers tend to convey the sense that the author threw a problem over a wall and the GA caught it and solved it for him. Really, there’s a lot of art to it and a lot of interactivity. Fortunately, that’s the fun part. - Dave Hillis -Original Message- From: Ernest Galbrun ernest.galb...@gmail.com To: computer-go computer-go@computer-go.org Sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 7:28 am Subject: Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : e volution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection I read a paper a couple years ago about a genetic algorithm to evolve a neural network for Go playing (SANE I think it was called?). The network would output a value from 0 to 1 for each board location, and the location that had the highest output value was played as the next move. I had an idea that the outputs could be sorted to get the X best moves, and that that set of moves could be used to direct a minimax or monte carlo search. I haven't had the chance to prototype this, but I think it would be an interesting and possibly effective way to combine neural networks with the current Go
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 2:40 AM, Daniel Burgos dbur...@gmail.com wrote: Nice project! I worked on this some time ago. I did not use neural networks but patterns with feedback. The problem with feedback is that it is difficult to know when it reaches its final state. Usually you get oscillations and that state never happens. I tried to solve that using timeouts, but what I got were random players. How are you going to solve this? Dani 2009/2/13 Ernest Galbrun ernest.galb...@gmail.com On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 22:42, Mark Boon tesujisoftw...@gmail.com wrote: Just curious, did you ever read 'On Intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins? After reading that I got rather sold on the idea that if you're ever going to attempt making a program with neural nets that behaves intelligently then it needs to have a lot of feed-back links. Not just the standard feed-forward type of networks. Some other good ideas in that book too IMO. Mark Oh, thank you for the advice, this is the kind of things that can very smoothly be implemented in the program, I will surely a/ buy and read this book and b/ introduce some feedback interaction in my neuronal network. I have not introduced it so far because it seemed some ineffective expense in calculation power. ___ 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/ I read a paper a couple years ago about a genetic algorithm to evolve a neural network for Go playing (SANE I think it was called?). The network would output a value from 0 to 1 for each board location, and the location that had the highest output value was played as the next move. I had an idea that the outputs could be sorted to get the X best moves, and that that set of moves could be used to direct a minimax or monte carlo search. I haven't had the chance to prototype this, but I think it would be an interesting and possibly effective way to combine neural networks with the current Go algorithms. Colin ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Nice project! I worked on this some time ago. I did not use neural networks but patterns with feedback. The problem with feedback is that it is difficult to know when it reaches its final state. Usually you get oscillations and that state never happens. I tried to solve that using timeouts, but what I got were random players. How are you going to solve this? My philosophy with this project is that I dont try to solve anything, I only provide the ecosystem with means to tackle the problem, but I don't have a clue about how I would do this. The way I allowed for feedback loops is that I process information once for every move, without clearing internal states of the neurons, possibly generating partial feedback. I have made available a new version, quite light and simple to execute, please feel free to try it if you are interested : http://goia-hephaestos.blogspot.com/ Ernest. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
I read a paper a couple years ago about a genetic algorithm to evolve a neural network for Go playing (SANE I think it was called?). The network would output a value from 0 to 1 for each board location, and the location that had the highest output value was played as the next move. I had an idea that the outputs could be sorted to get the X best moves, and that that set of moves could be used to direct a minimax or monte carlo search. I haven't had the chance to prototype this, but I think it would be an interesting and possibly effective way to combine neural networks with the current Go algorithms. Colin This was a great achievement indeed, but although it might seem dumb, my approach here is to be as ignorant as I can (not very difficult given my knowledge in AI) of subtile and clever ways to make my players evolve. The SANE algorithm has proven to be very powerful, but it needs some assumptions to be true. As probably true this assumtpions are, I prefer to have none and look at a really random evolution pattern. Ernest. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 08:40, Daniel Burgos dbur...@gmail.com wrote: I worked on this some time ago. I did not use neural networks but patterns with feedback. The problem with feedback is that it is difficult to know when it reaches its final state. Usually you get oscillations and that state never happens. I tried to solve that using timeouts, but what I got were random players. One way to handle this is to let the feedback loopbacks have a significant atenuation, so that the system will eventually settle to an equilibrium if the inputs don't change anymore. As with anything else, YMMV. regards, Vlad ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Ernest, Fun stuff! I have a co-evolved neural net that used to play on KGS as “Antbot9x9”. I use the same net in the progressive widening part of my MCTS engine. I would guess that many people experiment along these lines but they rarely report results. Here are some suggestions that might be relevant: - If you test your approach on smaller board sizes you can get results orders of magnitude faster. 7x7 would be a good starting size. (If you use 5x5, make sure your super-ko handling is rock solid first.) - Take the strongest net at every generation and benchmark it against one or more computer opponents to measure progress over time. Suitable computer opponents would be light playouts (random), heavy playouts (a bit tougher), Wally (there’s nothing quite like getting trounced by the infamous Wally to goad one into a new burst of creativity), and Gnugo. When you have a net you like, it can play against other bots online at CGOS and get a ranking. - Use a hierarchical architecture, or weight sharing or something to let your GA learn general principles that apply everywhere on the board. A self-atari move on one spot is going to be roughly as bad as on any other spot. You probably don’t want your GA to have to learn not to move into self-atari independently for every space on the board. - Use the =E 2mercy rule” to end games early when one color has an overwhelming majority of the stones on the board. - Feed the net some simple features. To play well, it will have to be able to tell if a move would be self-atari, a rescue from atari, a capturing move,… Unless you think it might not need these after all, do you really want to wait for the net to learn things that are trivial to pre-calculate? You are probably reluctant to feed it any features at all. As a motivating exercise, you could try having the GA evolve a net to calculate one of those features directly. - GA application papers tend to convey the sense that the author threw a problem over a wall and the GA caught it and solved it for him. Really, there’s a lot of art to it and a lot of interactivity. Fortunately, that’s the fun part. - Dave Hillis -Original Message- From: Ernest Galbrun ernest.galb...@gmail.com To: computer-go computer-go@computer-go.org Sent: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 7:28 am Subject: Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection I read a paper a couple years ago about a genetic algorithm to evolve a neural network for Go playing (SANE I think it was called?). The network would output a value from 0 to 1 for each board location, and the location that had the highest output value was playe d as the next move. I had an idea that the outputs could be sorted to get the X best moves, and that that set of moves could be used to direct a minimax or monte carlo search. I haven't had the chance to prototype this, but I think it would be an interesting and possibly effective way to combine neural networks with the current Go algorithms. Colin This was a great achievement indeed, but although it might seem dumb, my approach here is to be as ignorant as I can (not very difficult given my knowledge in AI) of subtile and clever ways to make my players evolve. The SANE algorithm has proven to be very powerful, but it needs some assumptions to be true. As probably true this assumtpions are, I prefer to have none and look at a really random evolution pattern. Ernest. ___ omputer-go mailing list omputer...@computer-go.org ttp://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/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Nice project! I worked on this some time ago. I did not use neural networks but patterns with feedback. The problem with feedback is that it is difficult to know when it reaches its final state. Usually you get oscillations and that state never happens. I tried to solve that using timeouts, but what I got were random players. How are you going to solve this? Dani 2009/2/13 Ernest Galbrun ernest.galb...@gmail.com On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 22:42, Mark Boon tesujisoftw...@gmail.com wrote: Just curious, did you ever read 'On Intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins? After reading that I got rather sold on the idea that if you're ever going to attempt making a program with neural nets that behaves intelligently then it needs to have a lot of feed-back links. Not just the standard feed-forward type of networks. Some other good ideas in that book too IMO. Mark Oh, thank you for the advice, this is the kind of things that can very smoothly be implemented in the program, I will surely a/ buy and read this book and b/ introduce some feedback interaction in my neuronal network. I have not introduced it so far because it seemed some ineffective expense in calculation power. ___ 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/
[computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Hello, I would like to share my project with you : I have developped a program trying to mimic evolution through the competition of artificial go players. The players are made of totally mutable artificial neural networks, and the compete against each other in a never ending tournament, randomly mutating and reproducing when they are successful. I have also implemented a way to share innovation among every program. I am currently looking for additional volunteer (we are 4 at the moment) to try this out. If you are interested, pleas feel free to answer here, or directly email me. I have just created a blog whose purpose will be to explain how my program work and to tell how it is going. (As for now, it has been running consistently for about a month, the players are still rather passive, trying to play patterns assuring them the greatest territory possible.) Here is the url of my blog : http://goia-hephaestos.blogspot.com/ Ernest Galbrun ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
How do you perform the neuro-evolution? What sort of genetic operators do you have? Do you have any sort of crossover? How do you represent the board and moves to the networks? - George On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 2:42 PM, Ernest Galbrun ernest.galb...@gmail.com wrote: Hello, I would like to share my project with you : I have developped a program trying to mimic evolution through the competition of artificial go players. The players are made of totally mutable artificial neural networks, and the compete against each other in a never ending tournament, randomly mutating and reproducing when they are successful. I have also implemented a way to share innovation among every program. I am currently looking for additional volunteer (we are 4 at the moment) to try this out. If you are interested, pleas feel free to answer here, or directly email me. I have just created a blog whose purpose will be to explain how my program work and to tell how it is going. (As for now, it has been running consistently for about a month, the players are still rather passive, trying to play patterns assuring them the greatest territory possible.) Here is the url of my blog : http://goia-hephaestos.blogspot.com/ Ernest Galbrun ___ 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/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
How do you perform the neuro-evolution? What sort of genetic operators do you have? Do you have any sort of crossover? How do you represent the board and moves to the networks? - George - The evolution consists in the random mutation of each neurons : weight, type of neurone, threshold, input and output adress ; the mutation probability of each propertie can mutate as well, so that the individual can eventually lock any important function. - What do you mean by genetic operator ? - Crossover is achieved through sexual reproduction. This method is always tried first, and can only occur between individual belonging to the same species. When two individual reproduce, they share randomly their genes, each gene being defined as a set of neurons. If tsis leads to some network error, the method is left and the two players are tagged as belonging to different species. - The game is fully handled by the opengo library : http://www.inventivity.com/OpenGo/ Concerning my players, the board is represented by a 19x19 integer array, each input going to one or more neuron input ; each case is also linked to one neuron output, deciding the move on any given moment. Ernest. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
Just curious, did you ever read 'On Intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins? After reading that I got rather sold on the idea that if you're ever going to attempt making a program with neural nets that behaves intelligently then it needs to have a lot of feed-back links. Not just the standard feed-forward type of networks. Some other good ideas in that book too IMO. Mark On Feb 13, 2009, at 5:42 PM, Ernest Galbrun wrote: Hello, I would like to share my project with you : I have developped a program trying to mimic evolution through the competition of artificial go players. The players are made of totally mutable artificial neural networks, and the compete against each other in a never ending tournament, randomly mutating and reproducing when they are successful. I have also implemented a way to share innovation among every program. I am currently looking for additional volunteer (we are 4 at the moment) to try this out. If you are interested, pleas feel free to answer here, or directly email me. I have just created a blog whose purpose will be to explain how my program work and to tell how it is going. (As for now, it has been running consistently for about a month, the players are still rather passive, trying to play patterns assuring them the greatest territory possible.) Here is the url of my blog : http://goia-hephaestos.blogspot.com/ Ernest Galbrun ___ 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/
Re: [computer-go] Presentation of my personnal project : evolution of an artificial go player through random mutation and natural selection
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 22:42, Mark Boon tesujisoftw...@gmail.com wrote: Just curious, did you ever read 'On Intelligence' by Jeff Hawkins? After reading that I got rather sold on the idea that if you're ever going to attempt making a program with neural nets that behaves intelligently then it needs to have a lot of feed-back links. Not just the standard feed-forward type of networks. Some other good ideas in that book too IMO. Mark Oh, thank you for the advice, this is the kind of things that can very smoothly be implemented in the program, I will surely a/ buy and read this book and b/ introduce some feedback interaction in my neuronal network. I have not introduced it so far because it seemed some ineffective expense in calculation power. ___ computer-go mailing list computer-go@computer-go.org http://www.computer-go.org/mailman/listinfo/computer-go/
