Topic: human mineable and proof of play Altcoins (Read 3255 times)

In the short term, MOTO is facing an interesting problem.  We just reset the difficulty again and made changes that squelched the bots, which also drove price up so there has never been a more profitable time to mine.  However, we have insufficient human miners active, and zero bot miners active, to keep the network secure around the clock.  We badly need more miners of any kind human or bot. 

Sure, and it can be, it just seems it always requires more effort (potentially much) in verification.

Another approach, of course, would be to have the user play against a standard "naive" bot.  However this likely weakens the challenge, as a counter-bot could specifically exploit the known behaviors of the challenge bot.


IKR?  Some days I wish I could just say "screw responsibilities" and set up permanent residence in the tar pit.  Maybe eventually I will. 


I'd almost be more interested in the related "nanocrafter" game (I just wasted two hours playing with it) although it might be even more difficult to score.


Maybe there should be an initiative to do continuous extra-solar broadcast of blocks so some alien race might one day be able to resume hashing in the event that we get destroyed.   


I dunno, Eliza is pretty cool.


But none can cheese it like Bender.


I've always had the worry that when we do create sentience it might quickly decide that the best course of action would be to pretend not to be.  (Could we ever tell?)

well, you were wrong about being too late to bitcoin: 2011 was not late after all


regarding arimaa...
it could work, but I wish it could be made more similar to actually evaluating the best move for a postition...

well, all this is very interesting, but eventually I'll have to get back to work....
I'll think about tetris and I'll research the foldit thing. If it has a scoring system then it could be used for the difficulty function. If you're interested we could work together on that.

but not yet... an asteroid or supernova and we're toast, but we are getting there

And regarding Marvin, I have to say he's the best AI. Ever. I prefer him to my other favorites, Mr. Data (even Lore), Bender, HAL or any other.
I always had the thought that maybe there were many sentient AIs but they got depressed and decided to kill themselves.

There are a few possible variations on the theme of "doing checkmate."  The simplest would be to do them in the style of traditional "forced mate" chess problems, but as you point out this potentially puts quite a burden on a verify.  You could let the user play both sides of the game, but this would almost certainly make solutions far too easy, so not only would a ridiculously large number of consecutive games be necessary to provide security but it is likely that the game would become no longer difficult for bots.

I think one workable solution lies somewhere between these.  Allow the user to play both players, but only to move certain pieces.  Require that a forced mate be done not only in a certain number of moves, but with a particular piece.  (Either a specific rabbit ftw or an elimination/immobilization sealed by a specific piece's move.

Remember that it can allow for challenges which can not be solved to be presented.  In fact, it is even somewhat desirable to do so.


Really A* assumes a single point traversal with a relatively free range of motion, neither of which are the case in MOTO.  Not only are you a pair of wheels and a head which have different rules associated and move somewhat independent of each-other, but you have an unusual set of constraints on motion.

A* does have a place in MOTO, but it is not where you'd think.  (My first "map filter" for MOTO was derived from an A* variant.)


But they are relatively effective at burning excess time, and this was more the comparison I meant to allude to.  Also, with MOTO entropy factors into things a little differently anyway.

However, yes, they are BS for quite a few reasons.  Mostly because they do not at all achieve what they purport to.  (I know someone who will readily design (and see through tape-out) an ASIC layout for any hash algo you'd like as long as you're willing to foot the NRE bill.  From what I understand he is quick about it, too.)


Two incentives to game at once!


It may very well be that the bitcoin blockchain is the first "immortal construct" in our known universe.

It is undeniably the largest single computing initiative in mankind's history, now, and by quite a bit.  If as many cycles were spent on running some mega-massive general learner, we might already have had Marvin complaining about the doors by now.  "Here I am, brain the size of a planet."

My first post on the forum - let's hope I was wrong...

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.229114

so.... what would constitute "solving a position"? doing checkmate? verifying it should be fast, so the verifier can't explore all the positions to validate that for example there was an unexplored move that would avoid the checkmate.... I'm very interested on this, but I couldn't make it work.


Yes, I wanted to make a bot but I never had time to do it. MOTO is harder than Mario, but check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlkMs4ZHHr8 The A* algorithm used here to solve Mario requires a heuristic function, I guess distance to the coin could be used.


Yes, we agree those are bs. Chained hashing looses entropy with each new hash.


this is the game we should all be playing: http://fold.it/portal/

eventually the AI that makes the singularity may be a cryptocurrency!

My agenda is for putting down any closed, opaque, and centralized gaming.  It is also for educating people as to the difference, and you've provided an ideal counter-example to compare against, that's all.  (I actually very much appreciate that HYPER exists to contrast!)


Only if you can make an argument as to why a statement is incorrect, and only if you do so without relentlessly pushing your own offering in the process.  Your post reads like a brochure, not like convincing discourse on where my statements might have been misguided.


Only some of it, for the rest all we can see is unsubstantiated (and, most importantly, unable to be substantiated) claims.


I see HYPER as about as much of a threat as WoW gold.  I find it hard to be threatened by a fantasy.

In any case I don't see how from my own interests in game related proof systems you infer that any statement I've made is false.  How about providing some actual evidence that my statements are false?  Show us how we can formally verify your distribution through your servers? (The only claim I've ever made against your model.)


I'm not trying to "tear down" any competition, only to illustrate the advantage of "on chain" systems by comparison.


Again, I've read the whole thread.  Show me where I've missed a refutation of the opaque nature of your servers?


Wait, I thought we were discussing the 800k "assumed distributed" not the 700k remaining.

Yes, a portion was distributed for bounties (a practice I'm generally skeptical of in it's own right, but that is neither here nor there) but I've only ever brought into question the portion distributed through your gaming initiatives.


let's look at some specifics from that OP:


How can we know that the servers do not bias in favor of your bots?  How can we know that you don't issue yourself coins through this server acting as a mixer?  What happens to my coins if just after I make some in-game purchase the server crashes?  What happens to the project itself if this server is hacked and all coins it handles are intercepted?  These are the problems to be addressed.  Human mining and proof of play systems resolve all of these concerns, all I ask is that you at least acknowledge the problem's existence in the first place.  You seem to refuse to be rational enough to do this.


How can I trust these people will actually ever send me the coins?  Why should I?  These are the problems to be addressed.  Address them.


How can we have any confidence that this exchange will be run fairly?  How can we have confidence that the operators will not just issue new non-coin assets and sell into the market for coin, undercutting legitimate players?  This is the very critical problem that all crypto-currencies try to address in the first place, while you're creating a situation that just replicates precisely the original concern.  You've made yourself something of the federal reserve of game currencies.  You've built a microcosm economy that expects its participants to just have blind faith in trusting it to be centrally managed correctly.  We're not big on blind trust in humans to correctly/successfully manage economies around these parts, in case you haven't noticed.


How can we have any assurance (besides blind trust) that you are not simply creating game tokens out of thin air and redeeming them for coin?

---

You have done nothing to rise to the challenge of answering these questions of "how can we trust this?"  Until you can actually acknowledge and address these concerns, instead of just pushing out posts combining criticism of any criticism of your work with an overt advert, I have to default to a response of "we simply can't."

Our goal in this thread is to discuss the building of systems very much like yours, but designed in such a way that these questions never even arise in the first place.
I'd think that instead of just lashing out against the fact that your project was used as an example of "the wrong way"  (sorry that this is the case, but it just is what it is) you'd be asking what you could do to make it the right way.

How about a centralized counterstrike server that signs and broadcasts replay logs of games for independent analysis and verification?

How about an mmo that runs on-chain?

How about integrating Zadegort with a decentralized asset exchange mapping in-game resources to colored coins so that supply is known and transactions are authenticated?

How about addressing the existence of these problems at all, acknowledging that there are technical solutions to them, and perhaps even exploring those solutions as options instead of just defending by offense and pushing the PR machine as hard as you can?  This is starting to feel very much like a "doth protest too much" situation, which doesn't help your case.

(EDIT: To your credit, it should be mentioned that you have at least raised the question of staking of the premine with your community, which at least shows a willingness to take steps in the right direction, despite not hitting on the central issue at hand. (No pun intended.))

I've been accused, in the past, of being ruthlessly literal.  I've also been accused of being an engineer.  Looks like you've got me pegged!


Sure, but my comparison was with arimaa which was designed with similar combined goals of being a game and being computationally difficult under analysis.


I'd agree MOTO, Arimaa, etc are all much more likely to be broken than SHA.  One thing that could easily be done to put the question to bed, however, is to directly embed SHA into the challenge itself.  For example, if the MOTO control forces (rotation and acceleration) were varied slightly by a sha hash output on a frame-to-frame basis then it would be pretty easy to assert that breaking MOTO would then certainly be harder than breaking SHA.  I think this is something that should be explored.


Likewise.  Personally, I think that these concepts will lead to some very specific and very big somethings, but that is another discussion for another day in another thread.


It isn't just multi-player game servers that I envision being replaced.  Human mining could have huge impact on social coordination, in general, as has been touched on earlier in the thread.  Obviously something along the lines of "proof of tweet" falls down, but there are many ways that similar goals can be achieved with these mechanisms.  There is a lot of discussion around DAC/DAO structures lately, but only very rudimentary execution to date.  The "ground being broken" by HUC/MOTO type "DAG" projects seems likely, to me, to set the stage for the future of that space as well

Poker has been around for some years now, nobody has been succesfull at developing a consistent winning bot yet.

Well as you've stated you're working on something different so you no doubt have your own agenda for putting down HYPER.

This isn't a thread hijacking you were the one who was talking about HYPER on the last page! So I am not allowed to answer your incorrect statements?

If you read the HYPER thread you can see the premine is accounted for.

Again you are making false statements and as you've admitted you're working on something different and no doubt see HYPER as a threat.

Good luck with your project. Maybe try having your project stand on its own two feet instead of trying to tear down any competition.

Your arguments are old, boring *yawn* and have all been nullified in the thread if you would bother to read it.

For example the 700 000 HYPER has been given out for bounties for many many different HYPER projects - not given out on our game servers. So you clearly have not read the HYPER thread or OP and have no idea what you're talking about!

so we get a shovel and go to location and mine the coin? human mineable?

Please don't take my scepticism too "literally" - you've worked on a bot, not me.  And I'm a mathematician, so I tend to "over-abstract" things a lot of times from the point of view of engineers....  I have no doubt that MOTO can be really hard to solve, I believe you about that.  My main point is just that at least in theory, PoW like SHA collisions are more secure since the entire design goal of SHA was to make it hard to break.  With MOTO or any other game, while the game may be hard to bot, it is mostly or at least partly designed to be a fun game.  So inherently it "can't" be as secure as something that's designed only for the very purpose of being hard to break.  (Which is not to say that it is impossible to find a flaw in SHA before finding an efficient MOTO solver - nobody knows for now.  But I deem it less likely.)

I really enjoy the discussions going on here, and I think that the ideas behind both HUC and MOTO are really innovative and may lead to "something" in the future.  It is a perfect fit, IMHO, to apply blockchain technology to replace central servers in multiplayer games.

How can we know what happened to the rest, though?  Presumably some was given away in your games but we have know way to know if you didn't just keep it.


You're promoting the very model that we're seeking to obviate in this thread, as if to advertise it to us?

This has to be the most misguided thread hijacking that I've seen in awhile.


Personally, I've watched the hyper thread since you launched.  Mostly out of interest in observing games-based issuance being done in precisely the wrong way.  I would hardly say there is any transparency there into the redistribution of your 1.5 millions of coins.


All without any consideration for the original design goals of crypto currencies - fair and transparent issuance, total decentralization of transaction, and open accountability of history.  Your "ecosystem" even directly renegs on all three!


Are you doing anything innovative with crypto tech?


Now your premine is somehow "unique" too?  Hardly.  I used to at least get a laugh or two out of all of the HYPER hype.  Lately I can't even chuckle at it anymore, it is just sad.

Good luck with your coin and your central servers and your whatever PR machine tactics you'll be using tomorrow.  I hope the model works out for you, somehow or another.

We'll be over here working on something just a little bit different in the meantime.

There are a few misonceptions about HYPER that have been raised in this thread I would like to clear up.

The biggest one being the funds HYPER has set aside for MMO Development, bounties and to sponsor more games and game development with the HYPER incubator funds.

There are less than 700 000 HYPER remaining in the various funds (this is entirely transparent and can be verified via the blockchain). Of this 700 000, the 500 000 MMO Development Fund is being escrowed and managed by psybits, a respectable Hero Member on the forum.

Of the remaining 200 000, it is being used to sponsor more game developments (such as the HYPER Counter Strike. Minecraft and Zandagort servers), and also for bounties anyone can participate in such as these: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-hyper-distribution-no-ipo-no-bs-claim-your-share-of-hyper-today-695339 So there are no millions of coins to be dumped, management of the funds has been entirely transparent and can be seen at any time. Please try reading the HYPER thread or OP from time to time if you are going to judge our coin.

Through sponsoring as many online games and servers as possible, HYPER aims to be a cryptocurency that is not just for speculation, but is embedded in a complex ecosystem with many opportunities for playing, trading, staking, gaming, and earning!

Biggest current HYPER developments:

- New website design coming out soon

- HYPER Reddit tip bot was just launched

- Testing to add HYPER to the in-game free market trading platform in space strategy MMO Zandagort we are running  is underway

- Counter Strike tournaments sponsored by HYPER are starting very soon

- A monthly HYPER Counter Strike Blitz that rewards the top players on the CS servers is also launching very soon

- I am finishing up the HYPER Whitepaper that will discuss in more detail the different HYPER funds. I am also taking feedbck on the HYPER thread regarding how the funds should be managed.

- There are many more partnerships with online games on the way that I cannot announce yet as we are still working out the details.

Thanks for reading guys What makes HYPER unique is the funds we have at our disposal - so the number of online games that incorporate HYPER and the number of projects we will be sponsoring can only grow - meaning HYPER will soon have one of the most extensive ecosystems of any alt out there!

The easy solution is to just assume all boards comparable on average and require some number of consecutively generated boards be solved for in a row instead.


This would be the less easy solution, requiring solutions to meet some threshold of "quality."  This is complicated by the relative weighting of significance of Arimaa pieces being generally unknown, so scoring would always have to be assumed to have a margin of error.


This is pretty much the approach taken now, but it is one of those things easier said than done.  The constraints of the problem really do complicate things nicely.  The noisy terrain and limited movement combine to create (more commonly than you'd probably think) situations where a map looks perfectly reasonable but is actually almost or entirely non-solvable, simply because there isn't a path that fits within the physics constraints.  Because the search space on paths is so enormously huge and the tiniest detail of the perlin map can cascade into a drastically different resultant path with even just one frame of a difference in input timing I don't expect much in the way of a total/"breaking" solver to be devised.  We will get progressively better learners, but I would be very surprised if someone showed up with a useful deterministic (or even hybrid) solver.  General search optimization (annealing) is probably even the best anyone *can* do, to do otherwise would likely require devising some way "around" the factorization problem.  (Granted, people could be doing their optimizing searches a lot more efficiently than anyone seems to be now.)

I'd encourage you to try to devise a solver, however, it is a lot of fun to work through!  It is also quite fascinating to see "hands on" how the integration combines with the perlin function to create the security offered by the proof.  (That "A HA moment" when you realize how, as a hash function, it makes even these crazy chained X-whatever hashing schemes look downright weak.....)


The same can be said for MOTO, both games are highly branching right from the initial states.  If you haven't tried it in ForFun mode (just run the motogame binary not through the wallet) you should give it a shot.  Try to get to the coin with 40-50 seconds left on the clock (as on the live network) instead of just getting to the coin at all.  It is much more of a "puzzle" game than it might seem. 

I'm intrigued... I can think of many ways of transforming hashes to game positions, but I don't imagine how would one decide if the work done is enough for declaring a block.. some positions will be trivial loses, some trivial wins, and some very intricate. Would the work be maximizing some fixed "score" function?


of course it depends on how is arimaa implemented, however I'd say it's more likely to have a sudden breakthru in MOTO: some general strategy like "stay balanced, don't go too fast, and aim for the coin". Arimaa looks like chess: it's just exponential and you can have heurisitics but at the end of the day you have to explore a lot of positions.

Go for it, I'm just saying that it would have to be just a PoW coin and not really a human-mined/PoP coin.  Nobody in their right might would ever "play" that large-enough-to-be-secure tetris game in the same way that nobody in their right mind would calculate a sha hash collision manually.

we agree on that, no need to convince you