But mostly this problem is in the opposite direction: can we provide carefully curated input that allows an intelligence to learn much faster? In this direction the results seem much less dramatic. My impression is that the speed of learning is limited by both the inputs and the learner. If the book of chess is a perfect input, then the limiting factor is the reader, and an average reader won’t get outsized benefits from perfect inputs.
My problem with this is that you’re treating the amount of material as fixed and abstracting it as “speed”; however, what makes me unsure about the power of the best possible book is that it may choose a completely different approach.
E.g., consider the “ontology” of high-level chess principles. We think in terms of “development” and “centralization [of pieces]” and “activity” and “pressure” and “attacking” and “discoveries” and so forth. Presumably, most of these are quite helpful; if you have no concept of discoveries, you will routinely place your queen or king on inconvenient squares and get punished. If you have no concept of pressure, you have no elegant way of pre-emptive reaction if your opponent starts aligning a lot of pieces toward your king, et cetera.
So, at the upper end of my probability distribution for how good a book would be, it may introduce a hundred more such concepts, each one highly useful to elegantly compress various states. It will explain them all in the maximally intuitive and illustrative way, such that they all effortlessly stick, in the same way that sometimes things you hear just make sense and fit your aesthetic, and you recall them effortlessly. After reading this book, a beginner will look at a bunch of moves of a 2000 elo player, and go “ah, these two moves clearly violate principle Y”. Even though this player has far less ability to calculate lines, they know so many elegant compressions that they may compensate in a direct match. Much in the same way that you may beat someone who has practiced twice as long as you but has no concept of pressure; they just can’t figure out how to spot situations from afar where their king is suddenly in trouble.
My problem with this is that you’re treating the amount of material as fixed and abstracting it as “speed”; however, what makes me unsure about the power of the best possible book is that it may choose a completely different approach.
E.g., consider the “ontology” of high-level chess principles. We think in terms of “development” and “centralization [of pieces]” and “activity” and “pressure” and “attacking” and “discoveries” and so forth. Presumably, most of these are quite helpful; if you have no concept of discoveries, you will routinely place your queen or king on inconvenient squares and get punished. If you have no concept of pressure, you have no elegant way of pre-emptive reaction if your opponent starts aligning a lot of pieces toward your king, et cetera.
So, at the upper end of my probability distribution for how good a book would be, it may introduce a hundred more such concepts, each one highly useful to elegantly compress various states. It will explain them all in the maximally intuitive and illustrative way, such that they all effortlessly stick, in the same way that sometimes things you hear just make sense and fit your aesthetic, and you recall them effortlessly. After reading this book, a beginner will look at a bunch of moves of a 2000 elo player, and go “ah, these two moves clearly violate principle Y”. Even though this player has far less ability to calculate lines, they know so many elegant compressions that they may compensate in a direct match. Much in the same way that you may beat someone who has practiced twice as long as you but has no concept of pressure; they just can’t figure out how to spot situations from afar where their king is suddenly in trouble.