Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Poker Bots No Limit Texas Turing Poker
Poker bots, software programs that autonomously play in online poker games, are getting a lot better. Casinos fear that they may drive human players away, either because the poker bots are much better players or because people will shy away from this form of online betting because they believe they have no chance against a computer opponent.
(Take a look at your hole cards)
Ian Ayres (author of the new book Super Crunchers (highly recommended, BTW), believes that computers are getting almost as good at poker as they are at games like chess and checkers. He writes
In the very near future, online poker may become a suckers’ game that humans won’t have a chance to win. Bots are quite scale-able and it will be virtually impossible to prohibit computer or computer-assisted online playing......it’s because poker is a game of skill that humans’ chance of winning are undermined. Unlike checkers, the key to poker is to predict whether other players are bluffing. On the Internet (without the possibility of visual cues), computers are probably better at predicting a rival’s hand from his or her past play. But computers are much better at confounding the expectations of their human opponents. Computers can play randomized strategies much better than we can.
Alan Turing, the English mathematician and cryptographer, formulated the Turing test for machine intelligence; if a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human being and a machine, and cannot distinguish one from the other, the machine passes the test.
One strategy the casinos might employ is to put the human element back into poker. For example, it might be more fun (for humans) to participate in a n-way video chat with the other players. That way, a person might have a better chance of seeing what he's up against.
Not all human players are concerned about poker bots. One of the people who commented on Ian's article in the New York Times remarked:
HU NL Hold’em [heads up no limit - ed] will never be a game dominated by computer software. My human opponents are thousands of times more sophisticated than any Bot could ever be, true randomness and intuition can not be programmed into a series of responses. Limit Hold’em is to NL Hold’em as flipping coins for money is to betting on sports. The level of complexity is staggering. Anyone who seeks to prove differently can design a Bot to my specific play style and see if they can beat me.
Sounds like the game is on.
From Poker bots on the rise via boing boing.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 11/14/2007)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 2 )
Related News Stories - (" Culture ")
SensorWake Scent-Based Alarm Clock
'The odalarm awoke Jorj X. McKie with a whiff of lemon.' - Frank Herbert, 1977.
Ulm Sleep Pods For The Homeless
'The lid lifted and she crawled inside...' - Larry Niven, 2000.
Prophetic Offers Lucid Dreaming Halo With Morpheus-1 AI
''Leads trail away from insertion points on her face and wrist... to a lucid dreamer...' - Peter Watts, 1999.
Navajo Say Human Cremains On The Moon Is 'Desecration'
'Like all loonies, we conserve our dead...' - Robert Heinlein, 1966.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Will Be Ready This August, 2024
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
Steve Jobs: 'Capture The Next Aristotle - With AI'
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
Europa Clipper Plate Carries A Special Message
'...a universal cryptogram — yet it is one which can be interpreted by any intelligent creature on any planet in the Solar System!'
Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional
'With a whir, the Scarab shot from the concealing shadows of the corner where it had hidden itself.'
AI Enhances Images Your Brain Sees
'I could have sworn the psychomat showed pictures almost as sharp and detailed as reality itself'
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.'
Deflector Plasma Screen For Drones ala Star Wars
'If the enemy persists in attacking or even intensifies their power, the density of the plasma in space will suddenly increase, causing it to reflect most of the incoming energy like a mirror.'
DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers
'I made them... with the fine work of the watchmaker...'
