From: Larry Kaufman <lkaufman <at> WIZARD <dot> NET>
Date: 14 sep 2000
Subject: Re: Computer's rating

At 03:49 PM 9/14/00 +0900, you wrote:
>I also thought that was impressive because I thought computer is far lower
>than that.
>
>At the MSO, I had a chance to talk to a guy (forgot his name) who helped
>developing AI Shogi. He told me that his software used by powerful machine
>has beaten in 10 seconds games the lower Shoreikai members easily.  If
>assisted by human, I think they can even play with top amateur players in
>blitz.
>
>Anyway, the computer has become much better than we all thought previously.
>
>Chiaki
>
     It seems that the rate of improvement (of sofware and hardware
combined) is somewhere between 100 and 200 points per year.  Since the
rating gap between top programs and top pros on ShogiDojo is about 600
points, even if we use the lower bound figure of 100 points per year the
best program might be competitive with top pros (at least in 30" byoyomi
games) in about six years!  Of course the rate of progress may slow down a
bit at higher levels, so it may take a bit longer than this, but it will
happen soon enough.  It will probably take a few more years before programs
are competitive with top pros at serious time limits like 6 hours per side
plus byoyomi.  I made a similar prediction for chess in the mid '80s, which
turned out to be almost exactly correct.  It seems that computer shogi is
following the same path as computer chess, but about fifteen years delayed,
due to the greater complexity of the game.

     Larry