Word: chess
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Indeed, most modern computer scientists would not consider Deep Blue an intelligent machine. And yet, ironically, this very fact underscores how much has been learned in the field of artificial intelligence. This is because the earliest efforts to create intelligent machines involved trying to program computers to play chess. In the first experiments, computers were modeled to play chess like humans--in a given position, the computers examined a small set of moves according to the heuristics that good human players seemed to use. The scientists were shocked to learn that the computers played miserably...
...trying to program computers to play like humans. Experiments that took advantage of the brute calculating force of the machines--where the computer analyzes every possible legal move in every position--produced much stronger moves. As computers got faster and the evaluation functions were made better and better, computer chess players just kept getting stronger...
Recently, however, progress has slowed. In 1987, chess computers may have been twice as skilled as computers in 1977, but computers in 1997 are not twice as good as they were a decade ago. The reason is that chess is an enormously complicated game. Even if computers continue to get faster at a faster rate, they will be better players than their predecessors by smaller and smaller amounts. This is because looking one move further is exponentially more time consuming the more moves a computer looks ahead...
...programmers were remarkably successful in making Deep Blue's play resemble the best aspects of human chess players. Grandmaster commentators repeatedly referred to its moves as "creative" and as being indicative of "a deep understanding of chess." In fact, Kasparov, who trained for this match by preparing against "computer-ish" moves, thought Deep Blue's moves were so unlike the typical computer that he has accused the IBM team of tinkering with Deep Blue during the game...
...must be remembered, however, that although chess is extraordinarily complex, it is inevitably finite--there are always a concrete and limited number of possible moves. By contrast, humans face an infinite number of choices in everyday life, and here, brute force is not an option. Computers, then, will need to find ways to grasp the infinite if they are ever to earn the stamp of true intelligence...