Page 61 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Clean Room
CHECKERS AND CHESS
A computer can be programmed to play checkers. An excellent program
was created by the roboticist Arthur Samuel,in which the computer can not
only play the game move by move, but can also look ahead, or anticipate,
to see the possible consequences of a move.
Checkers is a fairly simple board game. It is more complex than tic-
tac-toe, but far less sophisticated than chess. Anyone who has played
tic-tac-toe has discovered that it is always possible to get at least a draw (tie).
This is so elementary that a high-school student with some programming
experience can get a computer to play tic-tac-toe. In this game the ma-
chine needs to look only one move ahead.
Look-ahead strategy involving more than one move takes a certain
amount of practice or learning. Computers can, however, be pro-
grammed to learn from their mistakes.Arthur Samuel’s checkers program
uses a multiple-move look-ahead strategy so effectively that even the best
human players in the world find it nigh impossible to beat his machine.
There is another scheme that can be used for checkers: adopt a general
game plan. General strategies can be broadly categorized as either defensive
or offensive. The defensive/offensive schemes require look-ahead of only
one move.
Chess has been used to develop and test machine intelligence. One of
the first chess-playing machines was developed by Rand Corporation in
1956. Chess is a complex game. A computer must look ahead more than
one move to play a good game of chess. Multiple look-ahead strategy,
along with machine learning, can enable a computer to play chess at a
level of skill comparable to the masters.
The program developed by Rand Corporation was able to prove some
mathematical theorems. This is another good way to test the intelligence
of a computer.
CLEAN ROOM
A clean room is a chamber specially designed and operated to minimize
airborne contaminants. In some industries it is important that dust, dirt,
bacteria, and other particulates be kept to an absolute minimum. A good
example is the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs) for electronic and
computer systems. Robots have a considerable advantage over people in
these environments.
If certain precautions are observed, the environment in a room can be
kept “clean” while allowing humans in. People who enter such a room
must first put on airtight suits, gloves, and boots.A room that only robots
enter, not people, can always be just a little bit cleaner.

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