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0 pointsbtilly3y ago0 comments

Sorry, but not every game is unique. The following game has been played millions of times.

1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Bc5 3. Qh5? Nf6?? 4. Qxf7++

The game Go has a claim to every game being unique. But not chess. And particularly not if both players follow a standard opening which there is a lot of theory about. Opening books often have lines 20+ moves deep that have been played many times. And grandmasters will play into these lines in tournament games so that they can reveal a novel idea that they came up with even farther in than that.

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johnfn3y ago

You seem to be refuting a specific point of my argument which has little bearing on the overall point I was making.

All games were provided in the article. None of them were 4 move checkmates; nearly every one is longer than 20 moves and some are 40 or longer. There is simply no possible way that ChatGPT is regurgitating the exact same 40-move-long game it's seen before. You can check a chess database if you'd like; virtually all games longer than 20 moves are unique.

mtlmtlmtlmtl3y ago

But this doesn't disprove that:

1. It definitely regurgitates opening theory, much more than can reasonably be calculated at its strength.

2. It might be regurgitating tactical sequences that appear in a lot of positions but remain identical in algebraic notation. Famous example:

  1. Nxf7+ Kg8
  2. Nh6++ Kh8
  3. Qg8+ Rxg8
  4. Nf7#

This smothered mate can occur in a huge variety of different positions.

There's some qualitative evidence for this in the games.

In one of the games it has a bishop on f6 as white. It plays Qxh6?? Kxh6 and then resigns due to illegal move. I'd bet good money that illegal move was Rhx# where x is 1-4. So it seems like in some these positions it's filling in a tactical sequence that often occurs in the vicinity of recent moves, even when it's illegal or doesn't work tactically.

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