Retro Action, February 10, 1996: Kasparov Loses The Battle Of Man Vs. Machine
Living in a world where both our mutual funds and baseball teams are determined by complex algorithms, it may seem obvious that computers — for better or for worse — are now king.
But for decades, experts questioned whether their programs, even with Rainman-like processing skills, would ever be able to master a game as complex and human as chess.
All those dreams, however, were dashed on this day when IBM's supercomputer, dubbed "Deep Blue", put grandmaster Garry Kasparov to the test, defeating the reigning world champion after 33 moves.
To Kasparov's credit, he bounced back to win three and draw two of the next five games to win the match. The writing — or should I say coding — was on the wall, however, and the Russian was soundly beaten in their 1997 rematch.
A decade later, Deep Blue programmer Murray Campbell had this to say on the battle of man vs. machine.
"We're past the stage where there's a debate about who's better — machines or grand masters — and we're just looking for interesting ways to make the competition fairer," said the Canadian.
As for IBM, they're still gunning for the human competition. Their most recent incarnation, "Watson", defeated Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings in practice and is set to square off against the record-breaking champion this month.
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