> At Thursday, 3/4/2004 02:01 PM -0800, James Kittock wrote: > >Having said that, there are games where a "bot", > >that is, a computer program, makes the game > >relatively pointless for humans. Scrabble is > >a good example--well-written Scrabble programs > >generally crush the best human players. > > Do you have proof of this? I would think Jim Geary, for one, would disagree.
First-hand proof? No. However, in "Word Freaks", Stephan Fastis says that a Scrabble program beat the current world champion and another top-rated player 6 games to 3, and that was in 1998.
Based on my knowledge of A.I. (which is at least enough to make me dangerous), I find it pretty easy to believe that Scrabble is relatively easy for computers to play well. The fact that a computer can immediately recall all 120,000 or so valid words (more in the international list) is certainly a significant factor, although I don't think it is the only one.
--j