Why are Leela's fans so passionate?












1















The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they write things like this:




Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper logarithmic in cores Elo-wise 32 cores being smashed by Lc0 on my puny single 1060.




Watching Leela's fans argue up and down Talkchess, Chess.com's computer championship chat and TCEC chat, about how their engine is / isn't superior to Stockfish because of [multitude of factors] or how their engine is going to crush Stockfish after the next learning rate drop, about how the "end of an era" is at hand, etc, makes me wonder: why are Leela's fans so passionate?



I don't recall seeing anything similar to this before Leela showed up. It's not like Leela is so special either: before Leela showed up, Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini dominated engine chess, and there were periods when any of the three were the strongest engine. But I don't recall seeing any of their fans displaying the same level of intensity.










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  • The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

    – Isac
    2 hours ago
















1















The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they write things like this:




Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper logarithmic in cores Elo-wise 32 cores being smashed by Lc0 on my puny single 1060.




Watching Leela's fans argue up and down Talkchess, Chess.com's computer championship chat and TCEC chat, about how their engine is / isn't superior to Stockfish because of [multitude of factors] or how their engine is going to crush Stockfish after the next learning rate drop, about how the "end of an era" is at hand, etc, makes me wonder: why are Leela's fans so passionate?



I don't recall seeing anything similar to this before Leela showed up. It's not like Leela is so special either: before Leela showed up, Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini dominated engine chess, and there were periods when any of the three were the strongest engine. But I don't recall seeing any of their fans displaying the same level of intensity.










share|improve this question























  • The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

    – Isac
    2 hours ago














1












1








1








The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they write things like this:




Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper logarithmic in cores Elo-wise 32 cores being smashed by Lc0 on my puny single 1060.




Watching Leela's fans argue up and down Talkchess, Chess.com's computer championship chat and TCEC chat, about how their engine is / isn't superior to Stockfish because of [multitude of factors] or how their engine is going to crush Stockfish after the next learning rate drop, about how the "end of an era" is at hand, etc, makes me wonder: why are Leela's fans so passionate?



I don't recall seeing anything similar to this before Leela showed up. It's not like Leela is so special either: before Leela showed up, Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini dominated engine chess, and there were periods when any of the three were the strongest engine. But I don't recall seeing any of their fans displaying the same level of intensity.










share|improve this question














The neural-network engine Leela is a relatively new one. It's also got some extremely passionate fans. For example they write things like this:




Wait 5-6 months, and we will see SF8 on uber-duper logarithmic in cores Elo-wise 32 cores being smashed by Lc0 on my puny single 1060.




Watching Leela's fans argue up and down Talkchess, Chess.com's computer championship chat and TCEC chat, about how their engine is / isn't superior to Stockfish because of [multitude of factors] or how their engine is going to crush Stockfish after the next learning rate drop, about how the "end of an era" is at hand, etc, makes me wonder: why are Leela's fans so passionate?



I don't recall seeing anything similar to this before Leela showed up. It's not like Leela is so special either: before Leela showed up, Stockfish, Komodo and Houdini dominated engine chess, and there were periods when any of the three were the strongest engine. But I don't recall seeing any of their fans displaying the same level of intensity.







engines leela






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asked 3 hours ago









AllureAllure

1,053215




1,053215













  • The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

    – Isac
    2 hours ago



















  • The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

    – Isac
    2 hours ago

















The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

– Isac
2 hours ago





The difference is that normal engines have sort of a cap to what they can improve, whereas engines based on neural networks do not

– Isac
2 hours ago










2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes


















2














Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself.



The era of manually tune engine evaluation function will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence, like old leaders like Rybka and Shredder. All chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

    – Allure
    2 hours ago



















0














Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.



People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.



Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.






share|improve this answer
























  • "People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

    – NoseKnowsAll
    33 mins ago











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2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes








2 Answers
2






active

oldest

votes









active

oldest

votes






active

oldest

votes









2














Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself.



The era of manually tune engine evaluation function will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence, like old leaders like Rybka and Shredder. All chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

    – Allure
    2 hours ago
















2














Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself.



The era of manually tune engine evaluation function will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence, like old leaders like Rybka and Shredder. All chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world.






share|improve this answer





















  • 1





    Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

    – Allure
    2 hours ago














2












2








2







Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself.



The era of manually tune engine evaluation function will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence, like old leaders like Rybka and Shredder. All chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world.






share|improve this answer















Leela is special because it's the first strong open-source deep-learning engine. Defeating Stockfish (and also Komodo and Houdini) convincingly on all settings is a very significant milestone, practically more important than Google's AlphaZero. Google's system is inaccessible to anyone but themself.



The era of manually tune engine evaluation function will soon end. Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo will soon fade in existence, like old leaders like Rybka and Shredder. All chess engines adopting classical programming techniques will no longer lead the world.







share|improve this answer














share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer








edited 2 hours ago

























answered 3 hours ago









SmallChessSmallChess

14.6k22248




14.6k22248








  • 1





    Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

    – Allure
    2 hours ago














  • 1





    Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

    – Allure
    2 hours ago








1




1





Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

– Allure
2 hours ago





Wow, now you are sounding like a Leela fan ...

– Allure
2 hours ago











0














Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.



People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.



Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.






share|improve this answer
























  • "People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

    – NoseKnowsAll
    33 mins ago
















0














Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.



People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.



Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.






share|improve this answer
























  • "People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

    – NoseKnowsAll
    33 mins ago














0












0








0







Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.



People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.



Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.






share|improve this answer













Anytime a group of people get extremely hyped about something (and especially when they aggressively bash alternatives), there's a good chance this is just human tribalism at work. Leela may become extremely strong in the near future, but to say with 100% certainty this will happen now is naive.



People also like change. Stockfish is a revolutionary engine (strong evaluation function based on a huge number of heuristics, and an incredibly fast searching function), but it's been the top dog for a long time. No matter how good things are, eventually people want something even better. It's what drives society forward.



Again, I'm not saying it's impossible for Leela to live up to its hype. It's just that this hype you're describing isn't currently warranted.







share|improve this answer












share|improve this answer



share|improve this answer










answered 56 mins ago









Inertial IgnoranceInertial Ignorance

3,468110




3,468110













  • "People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

    – NoseKnowsAll
    33 mins ago



















  • "People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

    – NoseKnowsAll
    33 mins ago

















"People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

– NoseKnowsAll
33 mins ago





"People also like change" not if they have to change something about themselves they don't

– NoseKnowsAll
33 mins ago


















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