Computers today can easily play chess at the grandmaster level but they cannot tell a beautiful combination or move sequence from a bland one. We humans tend to appreciate beauty or aesthetics in the game almost as much as winning itself. A curious combination or spectacular sacrifice will often gain our attention and praise, even centuries hence. In this research, which has been on-going for seven years, we show that a computer can indeed be programmed to recognize and evaluate beauty or aesthetics in (at least) three-move mate problems and more recently endgame studies. The computational aesthetic evaluations for these domains are experimentally-validated and correlate positively and well with domain-competent human assessment. This technology therefore presents us with the ability to data-mine beautiful sequences from databases containing millions of sequences (too large to be explored by human eyes), and also assist human judges in composition tourneys. Though the computational approach may seem different or even inadequate compared to how human experts say they evaluate beauty, the results are comparable. Just as computers play chess in a way quite unlike how humans do, they appear to evaluate beauty differently as well.
Chess players are likely to have at least heard of the world of chess composition. This includes, for example, mate-in-two (#2) and mate-in-three (#3) problems, and also endgame studies which are typically a bit longer and do not necessarily end in mate. Chess compositions – to use a collective term – can be considered ‘works of art’ because they are intentionally designed to feature unexpected moves, themes or ideas that human players find appealing or beautiful in ways that are not always easy to put into words.
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