Feature: computer assisted accounts - the best anti-cheating feature

Lichess has an excellent cheat-detection mechanism. However, it isn't perfect. And even when it positively identifies a cheater, it doesn't really eliminate the problem, because the user just keeps creating new accounts. Unfortunately, this is bad enough to ruin the chess experience of anyone like in the 2200+ rapid range, because MOST of the game adds that show up in the lobby are posted by cheaters.

The issue we have is that some users want to play with computer assistance and Lichess doesn't admit that. So they break the rules and do it hidden anyway. So the intelligent way to deal with this issue is NOT to fight them, but rather to accept and accommodate them. Yes, just like Portugal made to get rid of drug addiction. A compassionate solution. Obviously we need is to make sure their opponents are fully aware of the fact that computer assistance is being used.

So, today we have two types of account:
- human accounts, were only a human can play, without engine assistance
- BOT accounts, which must be played by engines without human assistance

And my suggestion is to create a third type of account, which is a mix of both. We can call them "computer assisted" accounts, "cyborg" accounts, or anything in those lines. We will still need the cheat detection, but then instead of just blocking the account, we may encourage the user to create computer assisted account. Or perhaps we should just convert the type of the account that has been flagged by cheat-detection.

Thoughts ?

You're just assuming that all cheaters are the same and they cheat because they want a high rating or because they don't want to lose. That's probably the majority of cheaters but it's not the entirety of them.

**Some** cheaters are just ruthless people that enjoy seeing other people suffer and will never stop cheating, regardless of whatever compromise you offer them.

Legalize cheating by creating a new account tag and a new pool and what not does not make the phenomenon look any better and is not a solution to the problem.

I have considered computer-assisted hand and brain chess might be fun.

One side chooses the denomination of the piece and the other one choose what move to make.

It could vary as to whether the engine picks the piece or the move.

Castling counts as a king move.

The entire premise is simply incorrect. BOTs can definitely be used with "human assistence", there have even been bot accounts that did twitch plays or similar things. So if you want cyborg chess, simply use a bot.
For more info: lichess.org/blog/WvDNticAAMu_mHKP/welcome-lichess-bots

@MoistvonLipwig , oh ok see BOT accounts can be cyborgs (human + computer).

The problem then is that currently, only developers are able to create BOT accounts:
lichess.org/@/thibault/blog/how-to-create-a-lichess-bot/FuKyvDuB
Steps: github.com/lichess-bot-devs/lichess-bot

But I'm pretty sure 99% of the the users currently cheating don't have the necessary expertise and the patience to follow those steps.

So what we need is to allow users to create and use cyborg accounts just as easy as they do with regular accounts. Then they can use whatever computer assistance they with in this account. And we should allow them to post seek adds in the lobby too. Also correspondence chess adds.

Well in the end it might be better to split the BOT accounts in automated and manual. So the manual would always be a cyborg.

That's fair. You don't need to go through the trouble of understanding that lichess-bot stuff, but I don't know if there's an easier way than this lichess.org/api#tag/Bot/operation/botAccountUpgrade (which isn't hard but might look a bit intimidating)
Also to be fair I don't know how easy that is to find.

Now, I don't think this will make almost any difference, people don't cheat because they can't find a way to play with an engine legally, they cheat because they want to gain an advantage over the opponent. But for those few who genuinely do just want to play cyborg chess against other cyborg players, maybe doing that could be made a bit simpler.

A long time ago I remember playing at playchess, to which you got a free subscription if you bought Fritz.

They had an Engine Room and also a means to play a Centaur, and otherwise using engines was forbidden. I once tried to play as a Centaur but didn't get a single match.

Meanwhile, in the Engine Room the games were just won by whoever had the best computer spec (most cores), with pretty much all of us downloading the best new engine (at the time it was Rybka).

The genuine use-case for playing Centaur (or Cyborg as you call it) is to study new openings. You force your side to play your chosen opening (where the opponent allows) and then your assisted Cyborg is helping you with the continuations against another assisted Cyborg thus your opponent is likely to be finding most of the best moves too, so you know if your choice opening can stand up, and if so, what to expect when eventually you get to play it on your own.

Of course you can do all that now on the analysis board.

@MoistvonLipwig , have you checked out with a few cheaters what is their reason, in some sort of anonymous forum?

I believe, they cheat for all different reasons. From my observations, I see a large number of them focus on Rapid games, standing along the 2200 range. Those use an illegal cyborg account just because they expect the engine arrows to teach them something. I don't know if they actually learn anything. But perhaps Leela Chess Zero 1-depth would be useful to make the average player get used to play more solid moves, regardless of the calculation, because this engine plays at 2200 level at 1-ply depth, with pure heuristics.

@cashcow8 ,

The BOT api is intended for fully automated account, so it is even harder to set up a cyborg BOT account, right? Because it will need a board for the human to play some mechanism to for the human to pick or not the engine choices, displayed as arrows.

I guess that's out-of-the-table for most cheaters. Most of them just use the lame method (manual reproduction of moves from an external board). So my suggestion is to help them out to do it legally. That would be a "manual BOT" account, which is allowed to log in from the browser. And maybe it should something else other than BOT, maybe CYB ?

Initially, the change will forbid them from a number of features, such as tournaments, lobby, quick-pairing, correspondence, etc. But over time, as the number of Cyborg account grows, then we can create space for some features, such as a BOT-allowed tournament and BOT seek adds.

Cyborg play should probably all be automatically unrated, so any event that is rated would automatically be excluded to Cyborgs.

In addition, I guess most challenges would exclude Cyborg by default as would most tournaments.

The only reason I might want to use the feature would be to experiment with openings. If I ended up with a -2.5 valuation I'd probably resign given my opponent has use of an engine so will convert it.

The question of whether currently marked accounts could use it? I don't know - up to those who run the site.

@cashcow8 , BOT accounts are already allowed to play rated games. This allows their ratings to be comparable to human ratings. The rating change for the human player is cut in half though, to decrease their influence in human ratings.

However, they are intended to be passive, waiting a human to challenge them.

Personally, I would probably never with to play against cyborg account. However, it would be interesting to play on a cyborg account against another cyborg which has the exact same settings. For that to be possible, the computer assistance would need to be provided by Lichess. There are possibilities which do not involve an engine, such as providing opening book access during the game, for both players. Maybe endgame table-bases too.