Shannon, C. E. [Claude Elwood]

Game Playing Machines [offprint]

Lancaster, PA: Journal of the Franklin Institute December 1955. First Edition. 447-453, [1-blank] pages. Publisher's grey printed wrappers, stapled. 9 1/2 x 6 3/8 inches. Mild overall creasing and wear. Clean internally. Very Good. Wraps. [28610]


Shannon delivered this acceptance speech at the 1955 Medal Day Meeting, October 19, 1955, where he received the Stuart Ballantine Medal. The Journal of The Franklin Institute, Vol 260, No. 6, December 1955, first printed this paper. Here offered in the offprint form.

Shannon describes three classes of game-playing machines: 1) The simplest type - designed for games that have been completely analyzed (like tic-tac-toe or Nim). 2) designed for games for which "a complete analysis is unknown but for which certain general principles of play or maxims of sound strategy are available (Hex, chess, and checkers were examples). And finally: "the third and most sophisticated type of game playing machine is one which learns its own principles of play" - he describes two very elementary versions of this type. Shannon also talks about several hoax machines that were claimed to be machines but were in fact clever hoaxes. An interesting read for the layman about games and how machines can be used to play them.

"Includes discussions of Torres y Quevedo's chess-playing machine, A. L. Samuel's checkers-playing program, and Shannon's own penny-matching and maze-solving 'learning machines'." (Origins of Cyberspace)

PROVENANCE: The personal files of Claude E. Shannon (unmarked). The only example in Shannon's files.

REFERENCES:
Sloane and Wyner, "Claude Elwood Shannon Collected Papers," #99
Hook and Norman, "Origins of Cyberspace," #887

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