In chess, AIs are very superhuman; the best players in the world would lose nearly every game against any modern computer player.
Do humans still have something to add? The continued existence of correspondence chess, IMO, suggests that they do. In correspondence chess players have days to make each move, and play from their homes. Due to the impossibility of policing cheating under these conditions, correspondence players are allowed to use computer assistance.
You might think this would make the games just a question of who has more computing power. But as far as I can tell, that’s not the case.
What are humans adding? Low confidence, but I think it’s mostly opening prep; try to find a line that looks ok on shallow computer analysis, but where deeper analysis shows you have an advantage. The human value-add is telling the computer which lines to analyze. Since the chess game tree is so large, advice like this is quite valuable.
[Question] Do humans still provide value in correspondence chess?
In chess, AIs are very superhuman; the best players in the world would lose nearly every game against any modern computer player.
Do humans still have something to add? The continued existence of correspondence chess, IMO, suggests that they do. In correspondence chess players have days to make each move, and play from their homes. Due to the impossibility of policing cheating under these conditions, correspondence players are allowed to use computer assistance.
You might think this would make the games just a question of who has more computing power. But as far as I can tell, that’s not the case.
What are humans adding? Low confidence, but I think it’s mostly opening prep; try to find a line that looks ok on shallow computer analysis, but where deeper analysis shows you have an advantage. The human value-add is telling the computer which lines to analyze. Since the chess game tree is so large, advice like this is quite valuable.
Proof that correspondence chess is still played: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/crosswords/correspondence-chess.html Interview with a human player (from 2016): https://en.chessbase.com/post/better-than-an-engine-leonardo-ljubicic-1-2
On the other hand: I don’t play correspondence chess, so I’m not that confident in the claims above. And some people don’t find them plausible: https://twitter.com/liron/status/1660890927920201728?s=46&t=UlLg1ou4o7odVYEppVUWoQ
Why should we care? This might provide some indication of what value humans can provide in a world of superhuman AI (at least initially).
Can anyone provide a more definitive account of what value, if any, humans add in correspondence chess?