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If you gave a human a book or two on chess they would not become a decent player (they would be closer to 500-600 than 1100 ELO) and they would only get better after playing hundreds or thousands of games (often making illegal moves and moves that violate the rules of chess as they learn).

Your assumptions/intuition about generic human intelligence feels quite incorrect, considering LLMs currently play better than a brand new human player would (presumably without any attempt to fine tune them specific on chess, such as playing thousands of games).

by orwin1 hours ago|

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That's quite untrue. I taught my (adult) brother the moves, the only illegal move he ever tried against me (over his 6 first games) was a castle with a rook that already moved twice. Within a few hundred games (less than 500 for sure, he played 3 minutes blitz but always took at least 10 minutes analyzing his games) he was rated 1100 on lichess (which is like 1050 on chess.com and unranked in the real world).

by willmarch53 minutes ago|

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So your brother tried to make illegal moves while learning the game and it took your brother hundreds of games to get to be a decent player? I don't see how this contradicts anything I said...

by orwin26 minutes ago|

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The _only_ illegal move a human might make as a beginner is a failed en passant or a bad castle. And yes, a few hundred games is all it takes to be better than any publicly available LLM at the moment.

by rsfern6 hours ago|

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the discussion isn’t really about whether language models can become strong chess players though, the point is they seem to struggle to consistently make valid moves. Most humans don’t need to read two books to pick that up, just a couple lines of basic instructions

by willmarch6 hours ago|

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That has not been my experience with new players, they regularly make invalid or incorrect moves even after detailed instructions especially in novel situations.

by what8 hours ago|

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> considering LLMs currently play better than a brand new human player would

They’ve ingested all the literature on playing chess, a brand new human player has not.

by willmarch8 hours ago|

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Yes, but my point is that humans can’t even do the thing that the above comments are claiming humans can do (read a book or two and be decent at chess), and then they complain that LLMs can’t do the same thing (that humans can’t do either).

We seem to be moving goalposts to the point that humans don’t even live up to the expectations of the AI critics. The only way you get better at chess is by playing a lot of games and learning from mistakes, that goes for humans or AI agents, not simply by reading about chess.

by skydhash6 hours ago|

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> The only way you get better at chess is by playing a lot of games and learning from mistakes

How can you play without being aware of the rules and how can you learn from your mistakes without knowing they are mistakes? That’s what I said about reading a book of two. It is to kickstart the process. Then mastery is gained over time through practice.

This kickstarting then gradual refinement is how most people learn. And the foundational knowledge stays. Even a basic player knows to not do illegal moves.

by willmarch6 hours ago|

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Reading can kickstart the process, but you can also make random moves guided by some sort of system (such as a computer GUI) or learn by watching other players play. The overall point is that you learn through observation and lots of trial and error (whether you are a human or a computer). And beginners in chess often make illegal moves even after learning the rules, it's fairly common.

It feels like you're trying to say that humans never make illegal moves while learning chess, which doesn't match with my experience. I'm trying to understand your overall point.