HACKER Q&A
📣 mettamage

Go, chess, but can an AI win at backgammon?


I just played my first game and got in a discussion about it. My opponent said that computers can’t do it yet. I was surprised since it’s a game of perfect information.

I used a couple of search engines to skim some articles but I get the feeling that some people in the HN crowd can give a better perspective on it.

Why can’t an AI win at backgammon? Or can they and did I skim a bit too much?


  👤 yorwba Accepted Answer ✓

👤 slowdog
Depends on your definition of win.

Do you mean perfect game?

Be the best?

Beat the average player?

I think there’s a bunch of vagueness but let’s take “win” to be generally better than humans, I’m not an AI expert but I suspect it’s got more to do with the popularity of the game

There’s no reason why backgammon can’t be played by machines, and definitely no reason why they would well. There’s just not as much as a marketing pop compared to chess, go or Starcraft all well regarded complex games. In a lot of ways, googles investment in AI is a marketing opportunity, and in an unpopular game there’s not as much incentive