Some Studies in Game Playing with a Digital Computer

摘要

The general trend in artificial intelligence is to try to write programs that have general problem solving ability, rather than ones that are particularly good at one specific task. The program described in this dissertation is designed to play a large number of common board and card games. To play a game in this system, it is necessary to describe the objects used in playing the game and the rules of the game to the system. Each object used in playing the game and the rules of the game to the system. Each object used in the game is represented by a symbol. The properties of that object are kept on a property list associated with that symbol. The rules of the game are represented by a sequence of 'if-then' statements. The 'if' portion of the statement describes the action to be taken if that situation actually exists. Each situation and each action is described in terms of a primitive function of the system. An important part of any game playing program is the routine for searching for the various conditions that can arise in a game. This system contains a fairly efficient general searching routine which will perform most of the searching necessary for any of the common board games. This routine contains some useful automatic methods for using the results of past searches to reduce the amount of searching actually done. An analysis of the concepts needed to play various classes of games shows that only a few fundamental abilities are needed to play most of the common games. These abilities are included in the system. (Author)