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AquaRegia t1_j9fgrb3 wrote

Reply to comment by Digital-Chupacabra in ELI5: How do you make a computer “dumber?” by [deleted]

In addition to this, OP seems to assume that an "optimal choice" is always an option. In reality, it can be really really hard to make a good AI, so the chess AI you're playing against might actually be "doing its best", because whoever made it couldn't make it any better.

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ThunderChaser t1_j9fk8qw wrote

Yep.

To go back to the chess example, as chess isn’t a solved game, it’s impossible to always determine the most optimal move in chess. Computers can do lots of complex math to calculate what it thinks is most optimal, but it can never be known for certain.

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Conscious-Section-55 t1_j9fwndc wrote

And because of this, one more option is to explicitly limit the amount of time the computer has to "think."

This option is both subtle and powerful. To use the chess example once again, the likelihood of a "missed brilliancy" is not a lot lower than that of an ignored blunder. Perhaps somewhat lower, since the brilliancy may have already been discovered in a prior move, but if I'm forced to think fast, the likelihood of errors increases a lot.

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