Cogitations

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Cogitations on AI in the Game of Diplomacy

Outline

Cogitations are brain dumps of some of my current ideas on how I currently expect to develop various aspects of my TinKing project, mostly ultimately being for DeepLoamSea.

Each set of cogitations on a subject is identified by ISO-date, in chronological order. The date is always when its initial text was prepared; minor edits may be made later, but substantial ones should be in a separate later Cogitation. Where there is contradiction, later Cogitations naturally take precedence, so it may be necessary to read on to know my latest conclusions. To maintain an archive of some of my thought processes (interesting in their own right, but also I may sometimes revert to older ones) I will not normally remove obsolete (parts of or whole) Cogitations. I will try to add a note and/or link at the start of a Cogitation when something has been superseded, but do not guarantee to do so.

I have already published some Cogitations in DipAi, but in future I shall instead generally place any substantial documents of this type here, especially if very long. I will announce in DipAi when there are significant additions and changes. NB: The relevance, quality of the ideas, or their description may vary greatly – they are published here to best facilitate discussion, especially to help avoid wasting time on probably unproductive directions. Comments, and suggestion for further topics, are encouraged, preferably in DipAi .

Current Cogitations

• Commonality

• Cooperation

• DEMO

• Game Theory

• Low Discrepancy

• Pressure

• Prizes

• Q-Learning

• Representing Beliefs

• Theory of Moves

• Transformation

Brain Dumps

I say brain "dumps" to emphasise speed of production, rather than eloquence of prose – the best choice when they are they are subject to frequent change, being little more than my internal project notes for selected topics but made public – take them or leave them. I say "cogitations", in that, generally, they are the results of my deep thoughts on important topics, not idle thoughts or casual decisions on what I may do. That is not to say that they are probably best or that I will not change my mind, but they are important enough to me to publish them, despite often being in embarrassingly very rough and ready form, in the hope of getting some timely feedback. I am inviting comments to help get me back on track when I have, perhaps, gone on some silly flight of fancy! Or to point me to better standard solutions. Anyway, casual or otherwise, they document – albeit often crudely – what I expect to do in the given area on my project, but they are generally very much design work in progress. (See Roadmap for more considered plans.)