Thinking Machine 4: Watch It Think Over Chess Moves

By Alex in Science & Tech on Mar 5, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Martin Wattenberg and Marek Walczak’s Thinking Machine 4 is not your usual computer chess. When you move your piece, the computer’s thought process is then sketched on the screen as it ponders its move:

A map is created from the traces of literally thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine.

The orange lines are potential moves by black (computer) and the green is white (player).

Go ahead, just give it a try and watch the computer think: Link – via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival

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VonSkippy
Mar 5th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
That’s really neat. Not the best chess game, but for the time it takes to “think” about it’s move, it’s a reasonable match (but it seems to fall for a piece swapping strategy every time).
Miss Cellania
Mar 5th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Nice graphics, but the computer is way overthinking. It has to consider all possible moves, whereas a human can go faster by not considering “stupid” moves. If you are playing someone who makes stupid moves, then you don’t have to worry about thinking too much.
KripTiK
Oct 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
The weakest chess computer I have ever played against. I can beat it by hardly thinking at all. But it is kinda cool to see the computer “thinking” even though it doesn’t make very good moves.

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