Word: kasparov
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Five days before the opening move of Kasparov vs. the World, the chess champion sat in a fashionable Manhattan restaurant fighting off symptoms of a nasty head cold. Hunched over a cup of hot lemon juice and pinching his throat in pain, Garry Kasparov didn't look quite ready to rumble with the rest of the human race. Was this the world team's last, best hope at victory? Don't count on it. "There will," Kasparov says firmly, "be no mistakes in this game...
This isn't the first time Kasparov, widely believed to be the best chess player in the world, has taken on such a challenge. In 1996 and 1997, he played two six-game matches against and IBM supercomputer named Deep Blue, losing the second time around for the first time in his professional career. Millions of people followed that match on the internet, including thousands of people like me who had no idea (and still have no idea) what a "Sicilian defense" is, but were nonetheless captivated by the man vs. machine theme and the dramatic juxtaposition of such breathtaking...
...Kasparov's latest venture seems tamer. He will probably win this match with ease, if for no other reason than because too many chess ignoramuses like me will vote. Even in the case of an upset, though, his invisible opponents are safely human and no one will discern any apocalyptic meaning from the result...
...Still, Kasparov's new online adventure touches an even deeper and more immediate anxiety we have--or should have--about computers and the Internet. (Vague techno-paranoia, after all, has a limited appeal; someone pointed out at the time of Kasparov's loss that humans have been losing races to their own invention--the bicycle--for some time now without disastrous consequences). How is the internet changing the way we interact with one other...
...what about the chess game? It seems harmless enough, and maybe it is. Yet like Kasparov's battle with Deep Blue, "Kasparov vs. the World" is a particularly dramatic demonstration of how technology is capable of changing society...