[gnugo-devel] the old Gnu is dead, long live the newGnu icGo

[djhbrown .]

On 23/04/2017, B. Wilson wrote:

> Would someone might weighing in on the current status of things in this 
> department? If I'm just missing something obvious,

as one who has a saudades affection for old MGs, i can empathise with
people who want to keep an old steam engine going (all puns intended),
even though she has long since been trampled upon by jackbooted
masters of the blitzkrieg; GnuGo (GG) is to Adolfa as a cavalryman
with a rusty old sword was to the first squadron of armoured tanks.

It's just no contest, as Ke Jie is going to find out the hard way in a
couple of weeks, when Alphago huffs and puffs and blows his house
down.

i see from the recent archives list that there is still a fair amount
of interest around in dear old GG, who really belongs in a glass case
in a museum rather than out on the streets where she is easy prey to
an army of cloned muggers.

For her day, GG was a jolly good effort, and had her original
sculptors thought to let her look ahead a little, she might have done
a whole heap better than she did.

Except that she had a genetic defect - her basic perceptions suffered
from acute myopia and astigmatism - she saw dragons where there were
none, and was blind to the thousand cuts, because her wiring diagram
was just too crude - sorry to be the bearer of  bad tidings.

But all is not lost, for there is the icGo egg of a new kid gnu on the
block; one that has a real chance of beating dcnn juggernauts at their
own game; David vs Golalfa all over again.

Or even if not, of taking AI in a new and more fruitful direction: one
of cooperation rather than competition with people.  Now isn't that
the true spirit of Gnu?

It's all here - or rather, that is, as much of it as i've thought up
so far - it just needs a little help from GG's friends to gestate icGo
and turn her from a gleam in a tired old man's dull eye into a
sparkling brand new baby gnu.

https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/icgo

PS despite floccinaucinihilipilification by blinkered brick bawds, the
only thing icGo and GG have in common, apart from Go, is the spirit of
Gnu.