xshat wrote:32TB's will tell it what to do and it will not be asking human questions such s whether to play c5 or e5. The tablebases will say. If programmed correctly, it will have solved chess from move 1.
No. The tablebases have insufficient information. Let's say 1.e4 wins. The perfect engine is Black. What move does it play? All 20 legal moves lose according to 32TBs, but that doesn't mean that the perfect engine will lose against all opposition. What is the right move for Black now? In practice, the 20 legal moves will perform differently - this is not contained in the tablebases.
I could program my perfect engine to favour gambits when in a lost or drawn position, in the hope that the opposition goes wrong in the complications. Another programmer could favour imbalanced endgames. Another programmer could have a third strategy or a refinement of mine. And so on.
Now stick us all in a grand tourney of many thousand games. Indeed, have many thousands of such tourneys - which is like the present testing scene with its various rating lists. Let Rybka 4 be one of the participants, but without the 32TBs that some of the others will have. Rybka is imperfect - we know that already - but it is quite strong. It will win
some won positions and/or it will draw
some drawn positions, however few. It could even draw some
won positions, which against perfect opposition counts as a success. It doesn't matter if it misses a mate in 40 but delivers a mate in 70 instead; it doesn't matter if it struggles to draw providing it still draws.
Who will win the series of grand tourneys? Obviously it won't be an engine that resigns on move one. It will be an engine that scores best against the likes of Rybka. It will be the programmer of a perfect engine who, in a necessary addition to the 32TBs, has happened on the best algorithm to play a lost or drawn position in these circumstances. And in order to further improve his engine's performance, he can try to refine his algorithm. All the other programmers will try to refine theirs in preparation for the next round of tourneys. Full tablebases will not put a stop to competitive chess engine programming. I guess it would dampen the enthusiasm though.
Some further points... If we're allowing perfect engines to possess 32TBs, which would be a hardware miracle, what hardware should we allow the imperfect Rybka 4? I could imagine competitions to program engines without 32TBs (because of arbitrary hardware restrictions) that, starting from a won position, could still occasionally take points off perfect engines. Finally, remember that engines are also used for analysis. Whatever the true assessment of the starting position in chess, a perfect engine may still get asked to play a drawn or losing position - and then, as I've said, 32TBs won't provide all the answers.