Word: chess
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Garry Kasparov went down in flames yesterday, taking only an hour and 19 moves to resign to Deep Blue, the supercomputing chess machine designed to beat the reigning world champion. After trading wins in the first two games, Kasparov and Deep Blue played to a draw three times, setting up Game Six as the match's grand finale...
...machine still beat the man. Kasparov's nerves and frustration got the better of him, distracting him as Deep Blue calmly and unflinchingly reviewed its options at the rate of 200 million moves per second. Surely a second rematch will be scheduled, but for now, the reigning chess champion won by using its circuits, not its neurons...
These fluffy, pseudo-philosophical ramblings are entertaining and are good fodder for dinner conversation, but they don't interest me much. Deep Blue's triumph ultimately says very little about the human spirit except that it is possible for a group of chess and computer wonks to build a machine that can beat the world's reigning chess champion. Deep Blue didn't and couldn't learn a single thing throughout the match, as it relied on its sheer processing power to calculate its next move. Relentless computation is not artificial intelligence...
...interesting question is: Why are people so interested in building a machine like Deep Blue? Obviously, IBM arranged the match as a gimmick to get publicity for its increasingly powerful computers. But why a chess match? One could understand a demonstration of technological prowess in the area of national defense, but chess...
...hardly be argued that the game played by Kasparov and Deep Blue is the same as that played by grandmasters and amateurs around the world. A chess game without studied expressions, visible tension and fatigue is not really chess...