Eurisko & Trillion Credit Squadron Tournaments

[doomhunk]

This is one for all you oldies out there

In 1983 there was a famous 'AI' of sorts called Eurisko, programmed by Doug Lenat, that was exposed to the rules to Trillion Credit Squadron, and won the 1981 and 1982 tourneys (to the best of my knowledge) before being banned from the 1983 one (much to the relief of us mortals).

Does/can anyone on this forum remember anything about this? I'm writing to Doug Lenat too (he turned 50 a while back) but I want to hear 'our' side of the story too.

For instance, I recall the newspaper article at the time saying that Eurisko found & exploited loopholes in the rules that humans had apparently missed or were complex enough for most of us not to bother calculating.

Anything you can remember would be appreciated. I was playing Robocode the other day (a game where players code & test AI tanks written in Java - the game was designed to teach people Java, pretty cool) & thinking about using a similar teaching tool based on an updated version of Trillion Credit Squadron.... maybe Lenat has made Eurisko open source by now....

 

[hunter]

Originally posted by thrash:
Sounds like an "Ask Avery," assuming that he will ever get around to answering.

Blame that one on me. I collect them and put together a list to present to him. I've been waiting to get a decent number of questions before I passed them on. I do have enough now and will see about getting them answered and posted.

Hunter

 

[Bob Weaver]

In 1983 there was a famous 'AI' of sorts called Eurisko, programmed by Doug Lenat, that was exposed to the rules to Trillion Credit Squadron, and won the 1981 and 1982 tourneys (to the best of my knowledge) before being banned from the 1983 one (much to the relief of us mortals).

Does/can anyone on this forum remember anything about this? I'm writing to Doug Lenat too (he turned 50 a while back) but I want to hear 'our' side of the story too.

For instance, I recall the newspaper article at the time saying that Eurisko found & exploited loopholes in the rules that humans had apparently missed or were complex enough for most of us not to bother calculating.

The CT-Starships group on Yahoo has the Eurisko fleet in its files section. I don't think I can link straight to it (have to be a member of the group to see files) but in short, Eurisko created a fleet that took advantage of the extreme ends of HG ship design; in this case the +6 armor rule for buffered planetoids.
The core of the AI fleet was 75 11kton armored rocks (Armor factor J [18 ] armed with a large number of factor-3 missile turrets. The HG stat line lists batteries bearing as "V" which could mean from 29-50. Anyway, it was a lot; enough that these ships could swamp any opposing ship with missiles. Even at factor-3 sheer volume means a lot would get through. And with armor-18, there was nothing short of a spinal meson gun that could even scratch them. Apparently no other fleet had 75 MG-spinals available, so the AI fleet never lost. The fleet had 21 other ships, some with spinal mounts both MG and PA, but I'm sure it was the armored rocks of doom which made the fleet unstoppable.

The document also indicates, as Thrash said, that Doug Lenat was not 'banned' but convinced to not enter another fleet. I read somewhere else he was offered the honorarium "Grand Admiral of the Imperium" as gift for not playing again.

 

[doomhunk]

http://www.foresight.org/EOC/Engines.pdf

... is the link to the complete online pdf of Drexler's book.

'Banned' or not seems to be open to interpretation, the media reported that Lenat & Eurisko were asked not to take part a third time, and if they did, there would be little point in running the tournament so it would be discontinued. Whether the media reported accurately or not.... he was indeed awarded a title of sorts though, according to my records.

www.opencyc.org has the latest developments with Lenat's work, interesting from an AI perspective.

Thanks for the pointers to JTAS reports etc, I'll follow them up. All I had were the hints in TCS page 30.

I'd be very interested to hear anything that Marc/Avery remembers.

 

[djg_p]

Hi All,

Originally posted by doomhunk:
This is one for all you oldies out there

In 1983 there was a famous 'AI' of sorts called Eurisko, programmed by Doug Lenat, that was exposed to the rules to Trillion Credit Squadron, and won the 1981 and 1982 tourneys (to the best of my knowledge) before being banned from the 1983 one (much to the relief of us mortals).

Does/can anyone on this forum remember anything about this? I'm writing to Doug Lenat too (he turned 50 a while back) but I want to hear 'our' side of the story too.

For instance, I recall the newspaper article at the time saying that Eurisko found & exploited loopholes in the rules that humans had apparently missed or were complex enough for most of us not to bother calculating.

Anything you can remember would be appreciated. I was playing Robocode the other day (a game where players code & test AI tanks written in Java - the game was designed to teach people Java, pretty cool) & thinking about using a similar teaching tool based on an updated version of Trillion Credit Squadron.... maybe Lenat has made Eurisko open source by now....

Oh Yeah .... I remember this one quite well. It was presented to me from old high school mates who use to RP Traveller. Can I remember the actual source of the article? No I can't .... unfortunately. It was in a magazine though.

What I remember is this: It with the MT rules set for ship construction. (I can't remember if there was a TL limit set.) There was no physical size limit ... only a final combined costing limit to a Trillion Credits.

In 1981, all of the 'human' designers designed large craft with all the BIG bells and whistles while 'Eurisko' constructed numerous very small craft with very small weapons. Their winning advantage was that their maneuvering drive and agility were both maxed out. Putting that thru the set MT combat rules, it immediately placed the requirements TO HIT outside the scope of the DICE. Many of the contestants surrendered without even a shot being fired.

In 1982, 'Eurisko' was also admitted into the event with the restriction of being the only competitor not allowed to constructed small crafts. Instead, 'Eurisko' constructed craft with very high armour ratings (as mentioned in an earlier post). Again, 'Eurisko' won and only lost about 3 craft in the entire exchange.

The news article finished by saying that 'Eurisko' was then banned from all future tournaments.

I found the article to be very interesting.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by djg_p:
Hi All,
What I remember is this: It with the MT rules set for ship construction. (I can't remember if there was a TL limit set.) There was no physical size limit ... only a final combined costing limit to a Trillion Credits.

In 1981, all of the 'human' designers designed large craft with all the BIG bells and whistles while 'Eurisko' constructed numerous very small craft with very small weapons. Their winning advantage was that their maneuvering drive and agility were both maxed out. Putting that thru the set MT combat rules, it immediately placed the requirements TO HIT outside the scope of the DICE. Many of the contestants surrendered without even a shot being fired.

In 1982, 'Eurisko' was also admitted into the event with the restriction of being the only competitor not allowed to constructed small crafts. Instead, 'Eurisko' constructed craft with very high armour ratings (as mentioned in an earlier post). Again, 'Eurisko' won and only lost about 3 craft in the entire exchange.

The news article finished by saying that 'Eurisko' was then banned from all future tournaments.

I found the article to be very interesting.

Trillion Credit Squadron was classic Travller (not MT). TCS competitions had a few other parameters than just cost -- TL, jump range, refuelling, and number of available pilots were also parameters. These parameters changed from year to year; I don't know that the 1981 changes were a deliberate response to Eurisko, or just a regular change. (ISTR that the parameters were announced in several years in advance.) I don't believe Eurisko was placed under any unique restrictions.

And to be honest, I'm not surprised Eurisko was asked not to play again. Consider, the constest was supposed to be about people having fun and playing a game. Eurisko's designer used it as a comp-sci experiment, with the other players as test subjects (in essence). That may be neat for him, but it's not particularly fun for everyone else.

Imagine discovering that one of the teams in your office softball league is actually the NY Yankees. Might be fun once, but definitely not fun every year.

 

[doomhunk]

Especially if the Yankees are all robots...