Blondie24
Encyclopedia
Blondie24 is an artificial intelligence
checkers-playing computer program. The program was named after the screen name used by a team led by David B. Fogel
to determine the effectiveness of an artificial intelligence
checkers-playing computer program.
The screen name was used on the The Zone, an internet boardgaming site, during 1999. During this time, Blondie24 played against some 165 human opponents and was shown to achieve a rating of 2048, or better than 99.61% of the playing population of that web site.
The design of Blondie24 is based on a minimax
algorithm of the checkers game tree in which the evaluation function is an artificial neural network
. The neural net receives as input a vector representation of the checkerboard positions and returns a single value which is passed on to the minimax algorithm.
The neural net weightings were obtained by an evolutionary algorithm
, in this case by having a population of Blondie24-like programs play against each other and later eliminating those with fewest earned points in which the players earned +1 for a win, 0 for a draw, and -2 for a loss, and repeating the process with a new population derived from the winners. The result was an evolutionary process selecting the programs that played better checkers games.
The significance of the Blondie24 program is that its ability to play checkers did not rely on any human expertise of the game, rather, it came solely from the total points earned by each player and the evolutionary process itself. The evolving players did not even know which individual games ended in a win, loss, or draw.
Fogel, along with his colleague Kumar Chellapila, documented their experiment in several publications (see references). Fogel also authored a book on the development of Blondie24, and the experiences he and his team had while running Blondie24 in on-line checkers games, and eventually in obtaining a victory against Chinook
at the
"novice" level, which was equivalent to a high-level expert. Chinook at full strength was the leading checkers-playing computer program at the time.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
checkers-playing computer program. The program was named after the screen name used by a team led by David B. Fogel
David B. Fogel
Dr. David B. Fogel , is a pioneer in evolutionary computation. Dr. Fogel received his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of California, San Diego in 1992. He is currently CEO of Natural Selection, Inc. He is probably best known for his research project, Blondie24, in which a machine evolved...
to determine the effectiveness of an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
checkers-playing computer program.
The screen name was used on the The Zone, an internet boardgaming site, during 1999. During this time, Blondie24 played against some 165 human opponents and was shown to achieve a rating of 2048, or better than 99.61% of the playing population of that web site.
The design of Blondie24 is based on a minimax
Minimax
Minimax is a decision rule used in decision theory, game theory, statistics and philosophy for minimizing the possible loss for a worst case scenario. Alternatively, it can be thought of as maximizing the minimum gain...
algorithm of the checkers game tree in which the evaluation function is an artificial neural network
Artificial neural network
An artificial neural network , usually called neural network , is a mathematical model or computational model that is inspired by the structure and/or functional aspects of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons, and it processes...
. The neural net receives as input a vector representation of the checkerboard positions and returns a single value which is passed on to the minimax algorithm.
The neural net weightings were obtained by an evolutionary algorithm
Evolutionary algorithm
In artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection...
, in this case by having a population of Blondie24-like programs play against each other and later eliminating those with fewest earned points in which the players earned +1 for a win, 0 for a draw, and -2 for a loss, and repeating the process with a new population derived from the winners. The result was an evolutionary process selecting the programs that played better checkers games.
The significance of the Blondie24 program is that its ability to play checkers did not rely on any human expertise of the game, rather, it came solely from the total points earned by each player and the evolutionary process itself. The evolving players did not even know which individual games ended in a win, loss, or draw.
Fogel, along with his colleague Kumar Chellapila, documented their experiment in several publications (see references). Fogel also authored a book on the development of Blondie24, and the experiences he and his team had while running Blondie24 in on-line checkers games, and eventually in obtaining a victory against Chinook
Chinook (draughts player)
Chinook is a computer program that plays English draughts , developed around 1989 at the University of Alberta, led by Jonathan Schaeffer. Other developers are Rob Lake, Paul Lu, Martin Bryant, and Norman Treloar. In July 2007, Chinook's developers announced that the program has been improved to...
at the
"novice" level, which was equivalent to a high-level expert. Chinook at full strength was the leading checkers-playing computer program at the time.