[onlyrealcuzzo]

Are there niche versions of this? There's like communities that try to write code that can run on old hardware and in certain space requirements, etc.

From a coding perspective - I think it could get really interesting to see people try to make super small engines. I've seen a couple and am blown away that a pretty small program w/o an ML model can destroy me in Chess.

It'd be cool to see how good super simple programs could get.

[jerjerjer]

> I think it could get really interesting to see people try to make super small engines. I wonder what's the minimal hardware which can outplay any human with time control?

We know supercomputers can outplay any human, nowadays any smartphone can. But what about 286? 8080?

[hypertele-Xii]

I like that. I've actually generated competitive [1] genetic programs for Corewar [2]. It was only 5 instructions long, but proves that in theory, given enough time, a computer program could be generated that plays Chess better.

In a constrained environment like microcontrollers, the smallness of the space of all possible programs makes it faster for finding a good one. There is one catch, though: It may fail in unexpected ways.

[1] https://sal.discontinuity.info/hill.php?key=nano

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_War

[retzkek]

I'd also like to see something of a chess Turing test, and while very hard to quantify a competition for the most human-like low- or mid-level chess engine. On Chess.com there's a plethora of bots of different ratings, but outside a few gimmicks (e.g. "Nelson" always gets his queen out early) they're all the same, only differing in how frequently they blunder in-between perfect moves.

[kthejoker2]

That's the main objective of this engine (to undetectably emulate human play at different levels)

https://maiachess.com/