Death of Giraffe, but hopefully not ML in chess!

[matthewlai]

You absolutely sure google wouldn't be interested in having a google chess app with resources in the cloud? Could be a nice demo, just saying.

It's a shame, it's such a great engine. I'll be sure to make a compile of the last source code for OSX when I get a chance.

That would be nice .

[matthewlai]

A new discussion rise a couple a days ago on Lichess where the Crazyhouse variant was introduced ... Does Giraffe can learn Crazyhouse variant ???

With simple modifications, probably. It's the beauty of machine learning - easy to adapt to new problems.

[matthewlai]

It is with great sadness that I am announcing the discontinuation of the Giraffe project. I am not sure why I am making a post about it instead of just having it silently fade away... I suppose it is to give myself some closure. It's something that I had a crazy amount of fun with in the past few months.

I am now an employee of Google DeepMind, and I felt that Giraffe is a bit too close for comfort to what I do at work.

I can only legally use what's public knowledge in Giraffe, but the real world is not so clear-cut. I have been exposed to a lot of really cool machine learning techniques due to the nature of my work, and a lot of times it's difficult to discern what's public knowledge and what isn't. It's no fun knowing there are several techniques I can try that will probably drastically improve Giraffe, when I can't try them because they are still trade secret.

I am sure there are ways to make this work if I really wanted to, but I have many other passions outside of machine learning as well, and at this point it's just much easier to just pick something totally unrelated to work on - where I can go 100% and not have to worry about spilling trade secrets.........Disclaimer: This post is all personal opinion, and do not reflect the views of my employer. They have never contacted me about Giraffe (well, besides telling me they like it and to set up the first interview)

Congrats on your new job with the Google "Braintrust"...well of couse
the Giraffe project will be shelved for good and used to further to interests of Google Inc. (getting paid) thats what happens to all the other
chess based artificial intelligence projects...they all end up working for national defense or some "black project" or a high powered corporation
most of what we see is the initial efforts..then ZAP!! they disappear
gone...gone..gone..and the chess engine created remains..the way of the world...AR




ps... that w32 version still not working in XP

Thanks. Well, we all have bills to pay, and it's hard to say no to being paid a lot of money to do what we are passionate about, and used to do in our free time anyways.

I am not sure why it's not working. I don't have XP anymore, though I do remember hearing people say it did work for them on XP.

[GONeill]

Congratulations on the new job!

Any chance of a final Giraffe compile on the Downloads page of your site? The current one is from September and I think you've done some updates since then.

Thanks!

[MikeB]

All the Best Matthew - out of all the engines released over the last twenty 20 years , your engine, by far, was the most interesting. It is easy to see why Google hired you. Any final source updates before we turn the lights out?

[MikeB]

You absolutely sure google wouldn't be interested in having a google chess app with resources in the cloud? Could be a nice demo, just saying.

It's a shame, it's such a great engine. I'll be sure to make a compile of the last source code for OSX when I get a chance.

+1000

[Rebel]

Good luck Matthew and thanks for sticking the long giraffe neck into the chess neurons.

[MikeB]

latest giraffe:

Code: Select all

ResultSet-EloRating>details
   1 gnuchess 6.2.2   221 581.0 (537.5 :  43.5)
                          581.0 (537.5 :  43.5) Giraffe         -221
   2 Giraffe         -221 581.0 ( 43.5 : 537.5)
                          581.0 ( 43.5 : 537.5) gnuchess 6.2.2   221

still going on this 1000 game set

[Werewolf]

Sad news.

I hope you can develop it in your spare time as a private engine. Then one day you may leave Google and the techniques may become so well known that there's no conflict anymore and the Giraffe can live once more.

Set the Giraffe free....

[JJJ]

Very bad news. A lot of potential is now lost.