Today, we wonder what Deep Blue was telling us. The
University of Houston's College of Engineering
presents this series about the machines that make
our civilization run, and the people whose
ingenuity created them.
I've been getting into an
odd conversation over the past few days. I've been
asking, "Was Deep Blue's victory over Kasparov
significant or not?" The answers divide
sharply.
Chess is, after all, a form of war. The word comes
from the Persian cry, Shah Mat! -- The king
is dead. Shah Mat has mutated into Check Mate, and
the word Shah has become Chess.
Now a machine has finally beaten a human in this
war of mind and will. But Kasparov's fate was
sealed years ago. Computers have been working their
way through the ranks of chess players. A computer
could beat an average tournament player by 1966. It
was only a matter of time before one caught up with
a champion.
So back to that matter of war. Chess is a game of
guile and strategy. Chess means putting your
emotional engines out of sight and choosing moves
with cold calculation. In the end, Kasparov's cool
cracked. He angrily resigned -- charging, at first,
that IBM had let a human call the moves. I doubt
anything of the kind, just because the computer's
eventual victory was predictable.
Two generations ago, Alan Turing
gave us an important thought model for all this.
Turing said, suppose you go into a room with a
keyboard and a monitor. You type in questions and
receive answers. Then you try to determine whether
the answers are being given by a human or by a
machine. Ever since then, we've said that a
computer which can't be told from a human passes
the Turing test.
Most of us have assumed that no one could ever
create a Turing Machine because that veers close to
creating sentient intelligence. Here the argument
over Deep Blue heats up because of Kasparov's
initial belief that he was dealing with humans.
Deep Blue really did pass the Turning Test as far
as Kasparov was concerned.
That's why I think this strange little chess game
was significant -- not because the outcome was a
surprise, but because Kasparov thought Deep Blue
might be human.
This takes on huge significance in my business of
engineering education. All my adult life, I've
taught forms of applied math -- how to solve
certain differential equations and extract
information from them. Now, in the last decade,
that knowledge has been increasingly taken over by
computers. Today's student might write six lines of
instruction to a math-solver program and instantly
get what we once would've been proud to call a
doctoral dissertation.
Like Deep Blue, we've seen that coming. Yet we're
still surprised when we see it actually happen.
These absolutely predictable changes in the role of
the computer are a wake-up call. They remind us
that our identity, and our purpose on this earth,
are being redefined. They tell me that, if I fancy
myself no more than an intellectual gladiator, I
too will lose in the coliseum. I must find some
better role than that -- in the life I live.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds
work.
(Theme music)
McFadden, R. D., Inscrutable Conqueror: Deep (RS/6000
SP). New York Times, NEW YORK REPORT,
Mon. May 12, 1997, pp. A1 & A14.
Weber, B., Swift and Slashing, Computer Topples
Kasparov. New York Times, NEW YORK
REPORT, Mon. May 12, 1997, pp. A1 & A14.
Zuckerman, L., The Virtual Champion: Not Even a
Bleep of Joy. New York Times, NEW YORK
REPORT, Mon. May 12, 1997, pp. A1 & A14.
Byrne, R., How One Champion Is Chewed Up Into Small
Bits by Another. New York Times, NEW YORK
REPORT, Mon. May 12, 1997, pp. A1 & A14.
For more on the Kasparov vs. Deep Blue match, see
the website http://www.chess.ibm.com/.
For an earlier take on chess competition between
human and machine, see Episode 481.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is
Copyright © 1988-1997 by John H.
Lienhard.
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