[floe]

> In chess, AlphaZero initially doesn’t know it can take an opponent’s pieces. Over hours of high-speed play against successively more powerful incarnations of itself, it becomes more skilled, and to some eyes more natural, than prior chess engines.

'doesn’t know it can take an opponent’s pieces' - really? How would the world be different if it did 'know'?

I know this is kind of a nitpick, but I'm tired of all the metaphors in tech journalism that hold no informational value. I think giving a sense of false understanding is worse than just saying nothing at all.

[shmageggy]

I think it's an imprecise way of saying that AlphaZero isn't given the game rules, so it doesn't know the difference between legal and illegal moves, and also that before any training it would evaluate a caputure no differently than any other move.

[floe]

> isn't given the game rules, so it doesn't know the difference between legal and illegal moves

But it does have some way to determine a list of legal moves from any given state, and a way to determine whether a state is winning. To me, that's being 'given the game rules'.

> before any training it would evaluate a capture no differently than any other move.

That's a good way to say it!

[shmageggy]

> But it does have some way to determine a list of legal moves from any given state

No it doesn't. That's the Zero part.