Moreover, IIUC, most players approached the tournament with a role-playing mindset, while Lenat had a “Munchkin” competitive approach. In fact, he was eventually banned on the grounds that he violated the “spirit” of the game.
Actually you reminded me of the IBM Watson versus human Jeopardy game, which was arguably munchkinized by IBM. Although I am pretty confident that computers will eventually beat humans at games like Jeopardy, it was disappointing to see it happen in a way which was not true to the spirit of the game. But instead had the playing field tilted as much as possible in favor of the computer.
Well the biggest problem was that the computer rang in with an actuator. So that in situations where more than one player had the correct answer before the question was done, the computer always had first crack. That’s a huge advantage. And it’s arguably munchkinism where the spirit of the game is to think quickly and accurately.
Of course, one might argue that ringing in quickly is part of the game and therefore part of the spirit of the game. My response to that is that other “parts of the game” were omitted for the benefit of the computer. For example, interpreting the questions by reading from the screen and listening to Alex is part of the game. But the computer had the questions fed to it in the form of a text file. The computer probably would not have been as effective if it had to get the questions by having a camera pan to the correct monitor, zoom in, and then do an OCR to interpret the questions. Or by doing voice recognition on Alex.
Another “part of the game” is that you normally have to play at the studio in Los Angeles. The computer (which was based in New York) would have had to deal with latency problems if the game had been played in the normal location.
Another “part of the game” is audio and visual clues—as I recall there were no such clues.
On a slightly different topic, it was also a problem that there were two human players and one computer. So that on questions which favor humans over computers, the two humans would have had a tendency to split the points. Quite possibly the computer would have lost if the two humans had agreed in advance that one of them would always wait an extra 2 or 3 seconds before ringing in.
The bottom line is that the computer win was not satisfying. It reminds me of the annoying girl in your advanced math class who was always asking “Will this be on the test?”
The computer probably would not have been as effective if it had to get the questions by having a camera pan to the correct monitor, zoom in, and then do an OCR to interpret the questions.
The questions are always printed in the same font. Compared to the amount of processing power needed to answer them, the amount needed to do the OCR would be minimal.
Another “part of the game” is that you normally have to play at the studio in Los Angeles. The computer (which was based in New York) would have had to deal with latency problems if the game had been played in the normal location.
The questions are always printed in the same font. Compared to the amount of processing power needed to answer them, the amount needed to do the OCR would be minimal.
I don’t think it’s just a matter of OCR—it seems that the computer would have to first focus in on the correct area of the game board where the clue is being displayed. I’m not sure how quickly and efficiently that could have been done.
That’s about 60 msec latency each way — not much.
As far as I know, a fast human can react in about 100 milliseconds. So 60 milliseconds each way would arguably have put the computer in the same ballpark as humans.
Moreover, IIUC, most players approached the tournament with a role-playing mindset, while Lenat had a “Munchkin” competitive approach. In fact, he was eventually banned on the grounds that he violated the “spirit” of the game.
Good point.
Actually you reminded me of the IBM Watson versus human Jeopardy game, which was arguably munchkinized by IBM. Although I am pretty confident that computers will eventually beat humans at games like Jeopardy, it was disappointing to see it happen in a way which was not true to the spirit of the game. But instead had the playing field tilted as much as possible in favor of the computer.
How so?
Well the biggest problem was that the computer rang in with an actuator. So that in situations where more than one player had the correct answer before the question was done, the computer always had first crack. That’s a huge advantage. And it’s arguably munchkinism where the spirit of the game is to think quickly and accurately.
Of course, one might argue that ringing in quickly is part of the game and therefore part of the spirit of the game. My response to that is that other “parts of the game” were omitted for the benefit of the computer. For example, interpreting the questions by reading from the screen and listening to Alex is part of the game. But the computer had the questions fed to it in the form of a text file. The computer probably would not have been as effective if it had to get the questions by having a camera pan to the correct monitor, zoom in, and then do an OCR to interpret the questions. Or by doing voice recognition on Alex.
Another “part of the game” is that you normally have to play at the studio in Los Angeles. The computer (which was based in New York) would have had to deal with latency problems if the game had been played in the normal location.
Another “part of the game” is audio and visual clues—as I recall there were no such clues.
On a slightly different topic, it was also a problem that there were two human players and one computer. So that on questions which favor humans over computers, the two humans would have had a tendency to split the points. Quite possibly the computer would have lost if the two humans had agreed in advance that one of them would always wait an extra 2 or 3 seconds before ringing in.
The bottom line is that the computer win was not satisfying. It reminds me of the annoying girl in your advanced math class who was always asking “Will this be on the test?”
The questions are always printed in the same font. Compared to the amount of processing power needed to answer them, the amount needed to do the OCR would be minimal.
That’s about 60 msec latency each way — not much.
I don’t think it’s just a matter of OCR—it seems that the computer would have to first focus in on the correct area of the game board where the clue is being displayed. I’m not sure how quickly and efficiently that could have been done.
As far as I know, a fast human can react in about 100 milliseconds. So 60 milliseconds each way would arguably have put the computer in the same ballpark as humans.