I agree with Fozzie, I don't see this checkers thing as being such a great development in AI. From the sounds of it, the computer has basically formulated a huge lookup table, telling it the perfect move in any scenario. And while I'm sure the program used to create this database of moves is impressive, there's no actual 'thinking' going on during the playing of the game. Poker, where it's more about analysis and there's no such thing as a perfect game, or Go, where the brute force approach is useless due to the sheer number of moves, are both much more interesting from an AI standpoint than checkers or chess. I think the Poker application is particularly interesting, as beyond simple statistical analysis of hands, the machines will eventually need to develop pattern and tendency recognition. Some very sophisticated AI unlike any of those used in traditional AI engines.
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