[computer-go] Explanation to MoGo paper wanted.

[David Doshay]

On 9, Jul 2007, at 3:35 PM, Gunnar Farnebäck wrote:

> Don wrote:
>> Of course now we just had to go and spoil it all by imposing domain
>> specific rules.  I have done the same and I admit it.    It would  
>> be fun
>> to see how far we could go if domain specific knowledge was  
>> forbidden as
>> an experiment.   Once patterns are introduced along with other  
>> direct Go
>> knowledge, it's still fun but it feels a bit "wrong", kind of like
>> cheating.   It's clear that when we do this, we introduce  
>> strengths and
>> weaknesses to the program,  making it a bit more fragile, less
>> "universal" or robust.  Stronger too, but more susceptible to
>> in-transitivity.
>
> I'm on the other side of this issue. In my opinion all kinds of go
> knowledge are fair game and I'm rather disappointed that so small
> amounts of domain specific knowledge have been merged with the UCT
> search approaches.
>
> /Gunnar

I agree. I really do not understand why using domain knowledge would
be a problem for some people. It seems to me that this opinion is held
by programmers with less Go knowledge who hope that pure search is
an answer. Knowing what I do about Monte Carlo sampling (it was the
subject of my Master's thesis in physics), computer Go (a mere 4 years)
and playing Go (almost 30 years) I cannot imagine that progress will be
made without a great deal of domain knowledge.

The UCT method has clearly brought us a big leap in playing strength
together with bringing MC methods back into the mix. I think that the
next big trick will be in getting the domain knowledge into the form
that the MC methods can use efficiently.

Cheers,
David