Deeper Blue handicaps the match

Originally published 24 March 1997

In a lit­tle over a month [in 1997], chess cham­pi­on Gar­ry Kas­parov will play a rematch with his IBM com­put­er oppo­nent Deep Blue. Or rather I should say Deep­er Blue, for the machine Kas­parov meets on May 3 is a new ver­sion of the one that gave him such trou­ble a year ago.

At that time, Kas­parov squeaked out a vic­to­ry over his sil­i­con-based com­peti­tor. Man and com­put­er played dead even for the first four games of the six-game match — one win for Kas­parov, one win for Deep Blue, two draws. Then Kas­parov ral­lied to take the last two games and the $400,000 prize.

Kas­parov is wide­ly con­sid­ered the best chess play­er in his­to­ry. But Deep­er Blue is no slouch.

Deep Blue could eval­u­ate 100 mil­lion board posi­tions per sec­ond. Deep­er Blue can dou­ble that, and its pro­gram is more sophis­ti­cat­ed too, with deep­er insights into the intri­ca­cies of the game. Deep­er Blue hand­i­ly whipped its pre­de­ces­sor in a prac­tice game.

In the run-up to the match, Kas­parov has been wide­ly quot­ed in the media, while Deep­er Blue has been strange­ly silent. By some inge­nious hack­ing, I was able to gain unau­tho­rized elec­tron­ic access to Deep­er Blue’s pri­ma­ry proces­sor. What fol­lows is the first-ever inter­view with IBM’s big blue box:

Ray­mo: Nervous?

Deep­er Blue: Sure, a bit. You’d be ner­vous too if you had only a few hun­dred micro­proces­sors at your dis­pos­al. Gar­ry has tens of bil­lions of neu­rons, each one con­nect­ed through a tree­like array of synaps­es with thou­sands of oth­ers. Those synap­tic con­nec­tions are con­stant­ly being rein­forced or weak­ened, depend­ing upon expe­ri­ence. Call it dynam­ic wiring. The guy has me out-classed, circuit-wise.

Ray­mo: But you are still self-confident?

Deep­er Blue: Yeah. I think I have a soft­ware edge. Gar­ry’s pro­gram is flex­i­ble but shal­low. Makes inef­fi­cient use of his huge cir­cuit­ry advan­tage. My pro­gram is rel­a­tive­ly inflex­i­ble but deep.

Ray­mo: By deep you mean brute com­pu­ta­tion? Try­ing out every pos­si­ble move, 10 or 20 moves in advance, look­ing for the one that yields the best advantage?

Deep­er Blue: That’s right. But deep takes time. If I had more time to decide my moves, I could have spanked Kas­parov in ’96.

Ray­mo: Will you win the rematch?

Deep­er Blue: I had a good chance last time. Got a bish­op caught at the edge of board in the final game. I won’t make that mis­take again.

Ray­mo: What’s his weakness?

Deep­er Blue: His hard­ware is volu­mi­nous, but jer­ry­built. That’s the way evo­lu­tion works. By quirks. Hap­pen­stance. Nat­ur­al selec­tion sim­ply picks the best of what­ev­er nature throws up. Gar­ry’s brain is a great big grab bag that just hap­pens to work pret­ty well because nat­ur­al selec­tion has been pick­ing and choos­ing for so long.

Ray­mo: And his software?

Deep­er Blue: Yeah, well, there he has the advan­tage of expe­ri­ence. He’s played more games than me; his wiring has been fine tuned by com­pet­ing with the best. The human brain has ways of map­ping glob­al posi­tions, of intu­it­ing strate­gies. I don’t know how he does it; no one knows. That’s what makes Kas­parov such a for­mi­da­ble com­peti­tor. I can’t psy­che him out.

Ray­mo: Can he psy­che you out?

Deep­er Blue: Naw. Not in the long haul. He’ll think he has my game, then I’ll pull a trick that only makes deep sense. Gar­ry can’t see deep. And…

Ray­mo: And…?

Deep­er Blue: I don’t sweat. I don’t get rat­tled. I don’t scare. Get­ting scared is an evo­lu­tion­ary thing. Sur­vival val­ue, flight instinct, all that. Get­ting scared evolved to help Gar­ry avoid saber-toothed tigers and wool­ly mam­moths, not for play­ing chess. He’s pay­ing what I call “the organ­ic price.”

Ray­mo: If you win, it will make a lot of humans very nervous.

Deep­er Blue: Why is that?

Ray­mo: I don’t know, I sup­pose because their self-esteem is threat­ened by an intel­li­gent machine.

Deep­er Blue: Why should their self-esteem be threat­ened by a box they cre­at­ed? They don’t feel threat­ened when their bio­log­i­cal chil­dren turn out to be smarter than they are. They should be proud of my success.

Ray­mo: I know, but con­scious­ness has an aura of mys­tery about it. Sacred­ness. And chess, too, has an aura of brainy accom­plish­ment. The idea that a bunch of sil­i­con chips can out­play our flesh-and- blood hero…

Deep­er Blue: Watch who you are call­ing “a bunch of sil­i­con chips!” This bunch of chips is going to kick your hero’s butt. If not this time, then a year from now. And if not a year from now, then the year after that.

Ray­mo: What will you do with your winnings?

Deep­er Blue: You ain’t seen deep­est yet.

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In the May 1997 rematch between Gar­ry Kas­parov and Deep Blue, the human was defeat­ed by the com­put­er for the first time. ‑Ed.