Life In 19x19

Knotwilg wrote:I don't see a problem. If I want to know how strong I am and I play online, what do I care if my opponent is a bot or a human?
And if you want to know how strong your program is, what do you care if your opponent is a bot or a human?

OC, if I play even against a bot like Zen or AlphaGo, and lose every game, I don't get a good idea of how strong I am. But if I take a handicap that gives me a 50-50 chance of winning, I can get a good idea of my strength. One advantage that go has over chess in this regard.

Knotwilg wrote:I don't see a problem. If I want to know how strong I am and I play online, what do I care if my opponent is a bot or a human?
And if you want to know how strong your program is, what do you care if your opponent is a bot or a human?

The only problem I see is when people start teaching and ask money based on their boosted rank.

I want to know if I play against a human, a bot, or a human+bot.

alphaville wrote: I want to know if I play against a human, a bot, or a human+bot.

why?

Drew wrote:

alphaville wrote: I want to know if I play against a human, a bot, or a human+bot.

why?

because.

I also think it's dishonest. If I want to play against bots, I can run them on my own computer. What if I want to review with my opponent or ask about their go history? I've met many friends through playing games online. Maybe practically it doesn't make much of a difference, since you're unlikely to ever meet any online opponent; but at the end of the day, I want to play with another person.

There are some people on KGS and OGS who pretend to be genuine high dans while they're just making their moves with bots. They even give reviews and advice under the guise of a strong player. It's pretty ridiculous. I guess they get fulfillment somehow. The other reason people run bots is just to experiment or see how strong the bot on their computer is. In that case, why not just mention that they're just running a bot? Why the need to be deceptive?

Even ignoring everything i've said above, what if I just don't want to play Leela every 5 games.

I've noticed that when it comes to bots vs humans discussion, people are very biased towards one side or the other. I'm sort of the anti-bot side lol.

alphaville wrote:

Knotwilg wrote:I don't see a problem. If I want to know how strong I am and I play online, what do I care if my opponent is a bot or a human?

I want to know if I play against a human, a bot, or a human+bot.

Drew wrote:why?

I think there is a logical error here.

I can understand if someone wants to play against humans only, and also if others don't care. Just a matter of personal preference. But if you don't care about your opponent, then the logical consequence is for you to play both humans and computers - and NOT to leave computer accounts unmarked (as that would also rob others from their choice).

I don't see a problem. If I want to know how strong I am and I play online, what do I care if my opponent is a bot or a human?

The problem comes in trusting your fellow humans. If a bot alone would play at 9-dan level, a bot + human plays at 1-dan level and the human alone plays at 20-kyu level, and if the human is in charge of a single account and secretly decides for himself which of the three options to use, your experience is going to be vastly different.

The obvious counter that no human would behave that way seems to invalidated by experience on the chess servers. I have no personal experience of playing chess online but from what I've read this behaviour has been a major problem there. It has been partly alleviated, I gather, by playing only blitz games (presumably the human operator then doesn't have time to use a machine as back-up) but that has the drawback of restricting longer games.

Why any human would behave that way is beyond me. I can understand, without condoning, the use of chess computers in tournaments to win prizes. I cannot understand doing that in tournaments to get a higher rating and bragging rights. Even less can I understand doing it online where you are hidden behind a nickname and you have no-one to brag to.

But there's enough cheating and immoral practices in go already (pros included) to prevent us from being sanguine about the increasing opportunities to misuse computers in either online or tournament play.