WEBSURFERS around the
world are co-operating to breed a powerful new kind of chess
computer, modelled on the brain and able to improve over time
through an evolutionary process.
Participants
download a screensaver that creates several neural networks on
their PC. These networks - known as Multi Layer Perceptrons -
are linked groups of simple elements, operating much like the
neurons in our brains.
While the screensaver operates, behind the scenes the
neural networks play chess against one another, learning and
improving as they do.
After each tournament the population of neural networks is
reproduced, but in a way that mirrors Darwin's theory of
evolution, with its survival of the fittest.
"The likelihood of an individual passing on its genetic
information to the next generation is proportional to its
performance in the tournament," organiser Ralf Seliger says.
In this microscosm of evolution, "only the adaptation of an
individual to the environment matters", Seliger says.
"In our case the environment is the chess board and life
there is governed by the the rules of chess.
"Individuals that consistently outperform their peers in
the game of chess will get better chances than the weaker ones
to pass on their genetic information to following
generations."
The neural networks will start from scratch, without any
detailed knowledge programmed into them aside from the basic
rules.
They will differ markedly from existing chess computers.
"The chess-playing neural nets will not use any of the methods
and functions employed by conventional chess programs such as
Fritz or Shredder, or position evaluations," Seliger says.
And the screensaver? While all this clever stuff is going
on in the background, participants will be able to watch the
games of former world champion Bobby Fischer on screen.
Eventually, the neural nets on each PC will be tested
against those on other PCs, and against conventional chess
programs on the internet chess servers.
Participants eventually will be able to swap nets using a
Napster-style peer-to-peer application.
They also eventually will be able to play God by tampering
with the evolutionary algorithm that determines reproductive
success.
Because it's a huge project, involving lots of breeding,
it's being conducting as a distributed computing project on
the internet.
Like the SETI search for intelligent life in space,
organisers need to harness the spare processing power of
thousands of PCs.
http://wind.prohosting.com/chessweb/HTML/project.html
