Title: One Jump Ahead: Challenging Human Supremacy at Checkers

Abstract:

Arthur Samuel's pioneering machine learning papers are classics. Yet he is best remembered

for his checkers-playing program. In 1963, his program defeated a human opponent in a single

game, a milestone for the fledgling field of artificial intelligence. Since that historic

encounter, checkers has been branded as a "solved" game. As a result, checkers was passed

over in favor of using chess as an experimental testbed for artificial intelligence research.

The 1963 game was an aberration. In 1994, the program Chinook became the official World

Man-Machine Checkers Champion, finally realizing Samuel's dream. Along the way, there was an

imposing obstacle to overcome: the unbeatable human World Champion, Dr. Marion Tinsley. And

thus begins our story...

Although initially begun as a research project, the Chinook effort soon changed directions

and became a quest to defeat Tinsley. Instead of an impersonal contest between a man and a

machine, it became a personal battle between two humans striving for supremacy at checkers.

In this talk, the creator of Chinook presents the personal and technical sides of man versus

machine for the World Checkers Championship.

Short Biography:

Jonathan Schaeffer is the chairman of the Department of the

Computing Science, University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada. He is also the head of the "games

group" of that department which are the world leaders in machine game playing research for

over 20 years. He has done a considerable amount of work on games over the years and he is

the creator of "Chinook" - the world champion in Checkers.