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===But [[chess]]-playing supercomputers - === | ===But [[chess]]-playing supercomputers - === | ||
Hand-waving about [[Chess]] and [[Go]]-playing supercomputers — there is a lot of that in {{br|A World Without Work}} — does not change anything. In the world of [[systems analysis]], [[Chess]] and [[Go]] are [[complicated]], not [[complex]], problems. Both are hermetically and — ahh — ''[[hermeneutics|hermeneutically]]'' sealed zero-sum games on small, finite boards with simple sets of unvarying rules between two players sharing a common and static objective. Their risk payoff is normal, not exponential. They can, in theory, be “brute force” managed by skilled operation of an algorithm, and the consequences of failure are predictable and contained — you lose. | Hand-waving about [[Chess]] and [[Go]]-playing supercomputers — there is a lot of that in {{br|A World Without Work}} — does not change anything. In the world of [[systems analysis]], [[Chess]] and [[Go]] are [[complicated]], not [[complex]], problems. Both are hermetically and — ahh — ''[[hermeneutics|hermeneutically]]'' sealed zero-sum games on small, finite boards with simple sets of unvarying rules between two players sharing a common and static objective. Their risk payoff is normal, not exponential. They can, in theory, be “brute force” managed by skilled operation of an [[algorithm]], and the consequences of failure are predictable and contained — you lose. | ||
Gameplay is entirely deterministic: you can see that, at the limit, the player with the better number-crunching power ''must'' win. Even here, the natural imagination of human players, otherwise at a colossal disadvantage from an information processing perspective, makes beating them surprisingly hard. | Gameplay is entirely deterministic: you can see that, at the limit, the player with the better number-crunching power ''must'' win. Even here, the natural imagination of human players, otherwise at a colossal disadvantage from an information processing perspective, makes beating them surprisingly hard. | ||
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This ought to be the lesson: even for thoroughly simplistic binary games, it takes a ton of dumb processing power to beat a puny imagineer. | This ought to be the lesson: even for thoroughly simplistic binary games, it takes a ton of dumb processing power to beat a puny imagineer. | ||
But somehow, Susskind reads | But somehow, Susskind reads it instead as a signpost to the [[Apocalypse]]. | ||
Life is ''not'' a two-person board-game on a small-board with fixed rules and a static, common, zero-sum objective. Not even at university. Life is complex. ''[[Complex]]'' problems — those one finds at the frontier, when one has boldly gone somewhere no-one has gone before, in dynamic systems, where information is not perfect, where risk outcomes are [[convexity|convex]] — so-called “[[wicked environment]]s” — are not like problems in [[Chess]].<ref>There is more on this topic at [[complex systems]].</ref> Here [[algorithm]]s are no good. One needs experience, wisdom and judgment. ''[[Algorithm]]s get in the way''. | |||
===Computers can’t solve novel problems=== | ===Computers can’t solve novel problems=== | ||