[maaku]

The point (maybe irrelevant to the larger discussion) is that as soon as we figure out how to implement intelligent behavior in a machine, it stops seeming intelligent. Chess used to be a prime example of intelligent human strategic thinking. Now it's just an item on that long list of things computers can beat us at (incidentally, I predict Jeopardy will go off-air sometime in the next 10 years due to declining interest now that we have Watson).

Once we figure out all the issues of general intelligence, it will stop seeming so special. We may even begin to think that humans are really bad at it afterall.

[Houshalter]

Chess playing programs worked because they use unfathomable amounts of computing power to essentially brute force the problem. I don't think there are any chess programs that play anything like a human does.

Because of this there are a number of games that computers still can't beat because just stupidly trying every possible move doesn't work like it does for chess.

Watson actually does use a lot of natural language processing and machine learning so it is kind of intelligent. Though at it's core it's still just a glorified search engine. Jeopardy was always just a game of memorizing facts, not a demonstration of intelligence.

[maaku]

I suggest actually looking into the architecture of deep blue and followon programs, because right now you are exhibiting the very fallacy I was talking about. Exhaustive search over board states would take longer than the lifetime of the universe to compute a single move.master chess for grams work by using sophisticated algorithms to manage the search process. it's not the process that humans use, but it is intelligent nonetheless. Of course now that it is a solved problem, the common perception is different...

[Houshalter]

It's a guided search, so what? There is no fallacy here, deep blue is not intelligent. You can solve any problem with enough computing power and a basic search. No one has ever claimed otherwise or said that it would be intelligent.

What people did predict wrong is that it would take general intelligence to solve chess. As in, if you solved chess, you could also pass the Turing test and everything else. Here is a quote from Douglas Hofstadter:

>There may be programs which can beat anyone at chess, but they will not be exclusively chess players. They will be programs of general intelligence, and they will be just as temperamental as people. "Do you want to play chess?" "No, I'm bored with chess. Let's talk about poetry." That may be the kind of dialogue you could have with a program that could beat everyone.

And they would have been right if computers hadn't become exponentially faster.