Note to Self: Trillion Credit Squadron - Clarifications on Origins 1981 and Lenat

Also see previous post:  https://exiledfog.blogspot.com/2025/03/navy-fleet-design-and-lessons-of.html

Question to Self: Am I getting the basics about Eurisko, Lenat and The Trillion Credit Squadron (TCS) Tournament, staged at Origins in 1981 correct? It is forty four years ago and is definitely drifting into the legend and folklore territory.

It seems to have been a messy and emotional thing, like a lot of human endeavours and as above, with the passage of time, some forty four years, it is becoming less and less clearer. From an academic perspective on AI the Origins 1982 TCS event was largely ignored. I don't think it helped get Lenat tenure and may have even harmed him (the toxic nausea academia can have with respect to "games" was perhaps stronger then). The GDW Trillion Credit (TCS) Tournaments were not inundated with AI postdoc research students from respected AI Departments in leading universities trying to be "King" TCS Admiral. That much seems clear (and I think, much to the relief of Origins and GDW staffers).

For the record in 1981 there were three nation TCS competitions: 

• Origins (San Mateo, California, winner Douglas Lenat)
• Gen-Con East (Cherry Hill, New Jersey, winner Martin Misciagna)
• Gen-Con XIV, near Kenosha Wisconsin, winner Mike Moline). 

There was no national play-off, but I think it is safe to say the Lenat/Eurisko would have won, because the other two winners were regarded as "conventional fleets. Lenat/Eurisko's fleet stats for Origins 1981 were:

Winning TCS fleet -  Origins 1981 San Mateo California
Lenat/Eurisko Fleet 
Fleet Parameters: 
Tech level 12. 
Jump-3. 
1-G.
100 pilots. 
All ships, gas giant skimming required    
Fleet Summary: 
96 Space Ships in total
89 Buffered Planetoids so the fleet looked like an "asteroid belt" 
86 space ships immediately on table [79 of them looking very rock-like]
75 on table in the Main Battle Line (all Buffered Planetoids) 
11 on table in the Reserve Line (7 Wedges and 4 Buffered Planetoids) 
10 tucked away inside their mother ships in the Reserve Line
These 10 fighters are all Buffered Planetoids too 
Note: All human pilots (using 96 out of a possible 100)
*----- MAIN BATTLE LINE ----- (75 Space Ships - Rocks [Buffered Planetoid]) -----*
Seventy-five Eurisko class (Purpose - Battle Armoured [Buffered Planetoid] Missile Ships): 
BA-Eurisko ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BA-K952563-J41100-34003-0 
Cost MCr 13,030.385 
Tech Level C (12) Tonnage 11,100
Ship Characteristic Breakdown
BA-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Class - Battle Armoured
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Tonnage [10,000 - 19,999 tons] (actually 11,100 tons)
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Ship Type - Buffered Planetoid
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Jump (5)
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Manoeuvre (2) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Power Plant (5) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Computer (6) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Crew (3) Complement of 131 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Hull Strength (J) [Planetoid + Buffered Armour]  (Value 19) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Sand Casters (4) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Meson Screen (1) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Nuclear Dampeners (1) 
 Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Force Field  - None
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Repulsors - None 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Lasers (3) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Energy Weapons (4) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Particle Weapons - None  
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Meson Gun - None
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Missiles (3) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Fighter Squadrons - None  
Defensive (Blue) and Offensive (Red) Batteries and Batteries Bearing: 
Ba-K952563-J11100-1100V-0  : Batteries Bearing
Ba-K952563-J11100-1100V-0  : Batteries
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Sand Casters (4) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Lasers (3) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Energy Weapons (4) 
Ba-K952563-J41100-34003-0  : Missiles (3) 
Crew=131; Agility=2; Fuel=555; Passengers=0; Cargo=8; Low=0; Fuel 555; EP 555; Marines=35 
Note: L-hyd drop tanks add 5,550 tons of fuel and mass, change the agility to 1, and cost 5.56. (BA-K931363), change Agility to 1 and cost MCr5.56.  The ship is designed to manoeuvre when carrying up to 16,650 tons of drop tanks.
Design Notes (Exploited TCS Characteristics): 
**-*9*****-*******-*****-*  : The '9' implies it is a planetoid, basically a hollowed out asteroid. The advantage of this is that it is cheap to build.
**-*******-*******-****3-*  : Nuclear Missile Batteries had unlimited ammunition.
*----- RESERVE LINE SPACE SHIPS ----- (11 Space Ships (4 of them looking like rocks and 7 of them looking like  wedges) with another 10 small ships (all looking like rocks) carried in these, 21 in total) -----*
Four Garter class (Purpose Fleet Tender - To Jump the other Space Ships into the battle): 
TB-Garter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1
Cost MCr 17,584.104
Tonnage 12,000
Ship Characteristic Breakdown
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Class - Tender/Tanker Battle
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Tonnage [10,000 - 19,9999] 12,000 Tonnes
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Ship Type - Needle/Wedge
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Jump (5)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Manoeuvre (6) 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Power Plant (7) 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Computer (F - 6fib)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Crew (3) Complement 170
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Hull Strength (B) Metal (Value 11)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Sand Casters (4)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Meson Screen (1)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Nuclear Dampeners (1)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Force Field - None 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Repulsors (6) 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Lasers (3)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Energy Weapons (4)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Particle Weapons - None
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Meson Weapons - None 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Missiles (9)
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1  : Fighters (1)  Wasp Fighter [Lifeboat]
Defensive (Blue) and Offensive (Red) Batteries and Batteries Bearing: 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1c : Batteries Bearing C 1 EE 7 
TB-K1567F3-B41106-34009-1c : Batteries C 1 EE 7 
Agility=4; Fuel=840; Cargo=4.3 low=170 
Design Notes:
Needle-Wedge shape
Note: L-Hyd drop tanks add 6000 tons of fuel and mass, change the agility to 4, and cost MCr6.01.(TB-K1344F3) The ship is designed to manoeuvre when carrying up to 72,000 tons of drop tanks and one Wasp fighter.
Four Cisor class: BD-Cisor 
BD Cisor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
Cost MCr22,291.175 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0 
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
BD-K9525F3-E41100-340C5-0
Bearing 1 11 1U 19,980 tons Batteries 1 11 1U crew= ? Agility=0; Fuel=999; Cargo=19.1 low=95 Note: L-Hyd drop tanks add 9,990 tons of fuel and mass, and cost MCr10. (BD- L9313F3) The ship is designed to manoeuvre when carrying up to 29,970 tons of drop tanks.
**-*9*****-*******-*****-* the '9' implies it is a planetoid, basically a hollowed out asteroid. The advantage of this is that it is cheap to build.
Three Queller class (Purpose - Life-Boat Killer): BH-Queller 
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02-1 
MCr27,802.392
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
BH-K1526F3-B41106-34Q02
Bearing Z 1 NN1 N 19,600 tons Batteries Z 1 NN1 N crew=263 Agility=0; Fuel=1,176; Cargo=10.72 low=232; marines=200 Note: L-hyd drop tanks add 9,800 tons of fuel and mass, and cost MCr9.81. (BH-L1314F3) The ship is designed to manoeuvre when carrying up to 29,400 tons of drop tanks and two fighters (one Wasp and one Bee).
Notes: 
Needle-Wedge Shape
**-*******-******-**Q**-* the Q implies a very large particle accelerator weapon, the idea being it can blow up other peoples Lifeboats (or Shield Maiden if you care to call them that).
-- Smaller Ships -- 10 in total, Wasp (7 x 1,000 tons) and Bee (3 x 99 tons) -- 
Note: These are carried on other ships
Seven Wasp class (Purpose - Lifeboat [Almost unhittable ship] creates Shield so other ships can retire and repair damage, then return to fight): IL-Wasp 
Il-A90ZZF2-J00000-00009-0 MCr896.75 Bearing 1 1,000 tons Batteries 1 Crew=19 Agility=6; Fuel=60; Cargo=0 low=0
Notes:
**-*9*****-*******-*****-* the '9' implies it is a planetoid, basically a hollowed out asteroid. The advantage of this is that it is cheap to build.
Agility 6 therefore hard to hit!
Three Bee class: FF-Bee
FF-0906661-A30000-00001-0 MCr127.945 Bearing 1 2 99 tons Batteries 1 2 crew=2 Agility=0; Fuel=5.94; Cargo=0
Notes:
**-*9*****-*******-*****-* the '9' implies it is a planetoid, basically a hollowed out asteroid. The advantage of this is that it is cheap to build.
90 Rocks and 6 Needle Space Ships
- End of Fleet --

Note: I have been unable to locate the 1982 Lenat/Eurisko Fleet. It was almost the polar opposite to the above, being fast and unarmoured, but again numerous. In 1983 he was asked, "not to participate" by the organisers. Credit should also be given to the nameless runner up at Origins 1981 who has a similar (relatively individually small sized 10k+ [when compared to 75,000 tonne Dreadnoughts] but heavily armoured fleet, so numerous space ships - without the "specialist ships" Lenat had) fleet. He/She (but let's face it probably a "he") too would have beaten all the conventional fleets. 

According to the Trillion Credit Traveller booklet the Origins 1981, 1982 and 1983 TCS Tournaments conformed to the following rules (they seem to have been advancing the Tech Level by one each year): 

Douglas Lenat did include the event in his published research papers as an example of a test-case use of Eurisko, alongside other more standard domains (such as helping with Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit Design [VLSI]). It was a supplementary research issue that helped him think about his core interest, that is common-sense logic, that is a form of knowledge representation we have yet to crack. He was in the Symbolic-Ontology camp, even if it became uncool (see below. Lenat on Cyc, in one sense the ongoing evolution of Eurisko): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjkbmLjwXO8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2rK40bNrrY

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ogbl#search/ontology/QgrcJHrnzwWHQQTPRRXBqPthsMKBxgQvtRV?projector=1

https://www.first.army.mil/Mission/Units/Division-West/videoid/913493/dvpTag/ACT3/igphoto/2003313038/

Citizens of the Imperium - Forum Threads on TCS and Eurisko:

https://www.travellerrpg.com/threads/eurisko-and-tcs.38249/page-2

An AI Book from "Way, Way" Past (1986) and The Trillion Credit Squadron

What is there to learn from an old book? A book that is little more than an old technology review at that. A book that is a snapshot of the state of the art of Artificial Intelligence in 1986 (or rather a book published in 1986 about the state of the art circa 1984 - the publishing cycle was much longer to get to print then)? Technology was still pre-Internet. A "US based" state of the art, so Europe (where I studied in 1986-1991, BSc and MSc) in effect would have an information lag of two to three years to catch up. It was a time when the US was running scared of the Japanese Fifth Generation Computing initiative and the US Congress acted to mobilises "a whole of" US academic and industry sector response to what was perceived as an existential threat. Does that sound familiar? So familiar as what happened next was an AI Winter (the second) because of the stinging nettles of over inflated hype and unrealistic market  expectations. That was a winter I was caught up in as a graduate student, but took it on the chin and just bumbled off into mainstream commercial computing. 

The book is fascinating as it illuminates characters and personalities but shows the still unfulfilled dreams of Artificial Intelligence, from the mouths of the original pioneers who were at, or were taught by the delegates of the infamous 1956 Dartmouth Conference. Marvin Minsky's goal of that summer camp being to crack significant fields of AI (which still as to this day remain uncracked) within six weeks .. the craziness and the optimism of it. The field of Artificial Intelligence (although nobody was readily recognising it as a "field" in its own right at the time) was all things to all men, half the delegates did not even like the title. 

Marvin Minsky passed away in 2017. Late on in life, when asked of what he thought of today's take on AI, he remarked, "We seemed to be closer to success in the 1970's", which I think is a reflection on how much we have learned, that there is still so much yet to be learned, including many more "unknown unknowns". The book is called "Machinery of the Mind, Inside the new science of artificial intelligence" and I wish I could have somehow read it thirty four years ago (see below, written by George Jonson, who was given the chance to mingle with the AI scientists through means of an Alicia Patterson Foundation journalism fellowship in 1984):

Note: I have literally destroyed the book in act of reading it [sins of my marker pen highlighting and scribbling quick annotations (filling in with hindsight developments to know to have happened next) and there is also the age of the binding - the glue cracking as I turned its pages].

It is a good book, as it tells you as much about the "people" as the "things" they were trying to create and I learned a lot of stuff I had never dreamed of was actually happening, cool stuff. The funny, the bizarre and the quite, quite sad. There were many winners and losers, famous names galore from the annals of AI. There was also a tie into one of my long running science fiction wargaming projects, that of replicating Traveller's "The Trillion Credit Squadron" scenario, with Eurisko and Douglas Lenat's original fleet (Douglas Lenat sadly passed away in 2023). I came across the book because of an oblique reference to Douglas Lenat and TCS. 

The book stands for me as snapshot of an optimistic point in time, just before the cusp of the Second AI Winter (tied with the ultimate failure of the Japanese Fifth Generation Computing initiative and the political thawing of the Cold War). It is unbridled optimism, a freeze-pane of potential all the academic aspirational hopes, which had evaporated by 1991 but I still loved reading it.

Footnote: The original book cost $10 in 1986, a princely some forty years ago. I picked it up as a "second hand" book" from an internet shop, that shipped it six thousand miles for less that it's original price. In 1986 I would not have been able to afford the purchase, in 2024 it is less than the price of a coffee and a cake in a high street franchise shop.

Inspirational Stuff - Richard Feynman: Computer Science Lecture - Hardware, Software and Heuristics .. and some other stuff

Listen to Feynman on Computer Science: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKWGGDXe5MA

Trillion Credit Squadron: Lenat Traveller Competition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller_Adventure_5:_Trillion_Credit_Squadron

https://aliciapatterson.org/stories/eurisko-computer-mind-its-own

Malcolm Gladwell: How David beats Goliath

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/05/11/how-david-beats-goliath

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell