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In the most recent match up between man and machine, it was man that squeaked out a victory, though just barely. The competition was a highly anticipated poker match between a couple of poker professionals and a new computer program called Polaris.As our own Zac Bissonnette discussed over the weekend, as computer programs get better at gaming applications, eventually this technology may get transferred to the stock market to form the "perfect trader." But the newest program put to the test this week was only narrowly edged out by its human competition.
Polaris was recently developed at the University of Alberta in Canada. The university also recently released a checkers program that cannot be beaten by a human (but can end in a draw if its human counterpart plays the perfect game), and decided it was time to put its Polaris poker program to the test against two professional Texas Hold'Em players.
This was the biggest man versus machine battle since Garry Kasparov took on International Business Machines Corp (NYSE: IBM)'s chess program, Deep Blue, back in 1997. It was a tight battle, but in the end Polaris was defeated. Granted, we're talking about two highly practiced professionals, but it is good to know that in this day and age man can still outperform machine in some areas. But according to one of the players, Ali Eslami, Polaris proved to be the most exhausting competition that he had faced in his entire professional career, and added that "it's already so good, it will be tough to beat in future."
Even though Polaris took a loss this time around, one thing is for sure... computers are becoming increasingly more capable of performing "thoughtful" applications that can actually deal with input and pump out an intelligent response to the input being fed.
Will, as Zac Bissonnette has proposed, this eventually lead to programs that will be able to quickly and accurately decipher and react to market conditions in a highly effective, if not perfect manner? I think that the chances are pretty good that someone out there is already working on a program to do just that, the only question is will they share it with the rest of us once they develop it!
In case you were wondering who was victorious between Kasparov and Deep Blue ... Deep Blue took two wins, Kasparov took one victory, and the game finished in a draw 3 times... chalk one up for machine. You can replay the games here.
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