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H. G. Muller wrote on Mon, Sep 21, 2009 08:43 PM UTC:
Of course it can be derived from algorithms. Tal and Petrosjan are also nothing but algorithms. Exceedingly complex and unpublished algorithms, perhaps, but algorithms nonetheless. Your argument on classical music is unconvincing. What computers cannot do now, might be common place in a decade. Thirty years ago one could have said exactly the same about computers lacking the creativity to play Chess at grand-master level.

If Tal and Petrosjan subdued their opponents by theoretically unsound moves, they were only able to do it because they were much better than their opponents. This is quite normal in Chess. Speculating on that your opponent will not see the refutation but in stead will fall into a trap you set is a very efficient way to speed up winning a game against a weaker player. And that might look brilliant to one who is not able to recognize the trap either. Computers can be very easily programmed to play that way. But it will get them slaughtered by their peers, of course. It is easy to look brilliant and creative when you are _much_ better than your opponents. But when you are hardly better, it calls for realism. This has nothing to do with computer vs human algorithms. It is just the computer's bad luck that they always meet their match, in terms of search depth. So they cannot afford fancy-looking strategies that can be exposed as unsound at their own level. When your traps are exposed and backfire, they suddenly don't look so brilliant anymore. If you win by sacrificing a Queen everyone is in awe. But when you lose by it, they shrug and say, ' he blundered his Queen away again. Will this guy never learn?'...

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