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    Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI
    Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI
    Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI
    Ebook398 pages6 hours

    Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI

    By David B. Fogel

    4/5

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    About this ebook


    Blondie24 tells the story of a computer that taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators ever could by using a program that emulated the basic principles of Darwinian evolution--random variation and natural selection-- to discover on its own how to excel at the game.


    Unlike Deep Blue, the celebrated chess machine that beat Garry Kasparov, the former world champion chess player, this evolutionary program didn't have access to strategies employed by human grand masters, or to databases of moves for the endgame moves, or to other human expertise about the game of chekers. With only the most rudimentary information programmed into its "brain," Blondie24 (the program's Internet username) created its own means of evaluating the complex, changing patterns of pieces that make up a checkers game by evolving artificial neural networks---mathematical models that loosely describe how a brain works.


    It's fitting that Blondie24 should appear in 2001, the year when we remember Arthur C. Clarke's prediction that one day we would succeed in creating a thinking machine. In this compelling narrative, David Fogel, author and co-creator of Blondie24, describes in convincing detail how evolutionary computation may help to bring us closer to Clarke's vision of HAL. Along the way, he gives readers an inside look into the fascinating history of AI and poses provocative questions about its future.

    * Brings one of the most exciting areas of AI research to life by following the story of Blondie24's development in the lab through her evolution into an expert-rated checkers player, based on her impressive success in Internet competition.
    * Explains the foundations of evolutionary computation, simply and clearly.
    * Presents complex material in an engaging style for readers with no background in computer science or artificial intelligence.
    * Examines foundational issues surrounding the creation of a thinking machine.
    * Debates whether the famous Turing Test really tests for intelligence.
    * Challenges deeply entrenched myths about the successes and implication of some well-known AI experiments
    * Shows Blondie's moves with checkerboard diagrams that readers can easily follow.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElsevier Science
    Release dateOct 4, 2001
    ISBN9780080500188
    Blondie24: Playing at the Edge of AI
    Author

    David B. Fogel

    David B. Fogel is the CEO of Natural Selection, Inc., a company which addresses complex, real-world problems in the areas of industry, medicine, and defense by applying the techniques of evolutionary computation, neural networks, fuzzy systems, knowledge-based systems, and stochastic processes, among other technologies. Dr. Fogel was the founding president of the Evolutionary Programming Society and was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 1999. He is the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation and serves on the editorial boards of several journals including BioSystems, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, and Journal of Scheduling.

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    • 5/5
      As an armchair scientist, I am frequently frustrated by books written for novices (which I’m not) and also books written for experts (which I’m not either).The former claim accessibility which usually means taking out all technical information, math, etc. The results is anecdotal, “gee-whizz” reporting that is ultimately without any value beyond entertainment.The latter try to tempt in a large audience by getting “Introduction to …” into the title. They then proceed to rapidly summarise the foundations in twenty insultingly basic pages before shifting to advanced mathematics and a vocabulary/jargon designed only for their inner circle.Where, you ask, are the books for armchair scientists? Check out my bookshelf for a few, but read on first …Blondie 24: Playing at the Edge of AI is science as it should be written. It will be genuinely of interest to novice and expert alike (and especially the armchair scientist!). This is a tall claim, made by many books but deserved by few.The novice will enjoy it because it is engaging and perfectly accessible. David Fogel takes his time setting the scene for the experiment to follow by addressing all key concepts needed to prepare the lay reader. He does it without recourse to jargon and with a literate and witty style. I had already some notions of the subject but felt no desire to skip forward to the “advanced” stuff. I’m glad I didn’t, because his exploration of the background leads logically and inexorably to the questions his experiment poses. I say logically and inexorably, but he seems to be the first to be inspired to answer these questions and the reader experiences the thrill of spotting a scientific avenue worth exploring.There’s plenty here too for the armchair scientist and the expert. For the former, the investigation is a perfect example of science whose solution is accessible from an armchair. For the latter, it’ s original science, and David Fogel is generous enough to set down all his assumptions, his approach and even criticisms which can be levelled at it, to make it possible to replicate his work and advance it in new directions.Later postings to this blog will challenge the work described in the book but do not imagine that criticism and admiration cannot share the same platform. This book inspired me with its audacious objective, it entertained me with its engaging style and it challenged me to spend months investigating and testing its ideas.What more could I ask from any book?

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    Blondie24 - David B. Fogel

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