Chess BumpThe triumphant teamwork of humans and computers.
By William SaletanPosted Friday, May 11, 2007, at 6:05 PM ETIf we humans are so good at seeing the big picture, let's see it. In the big picture, whether the computer beats us isn't important. Either way, it's a human triumph. In fact, it's a greater human triumph when the computer wins, because the only thing harder than outsmarting a computer is figuring out how it got outsmarted and teaching it to recognize that kind of trap next time, when you won't be there to coach it. As a player, you can conceive a brilliant move without understanding where it came from. As a programmer, you have to do something much harder: articulate rules that will generate such brilliance.
From microwaves to cell phones to word processors, computers are extending our intelligence. At their best, and at ours, they're challenging us, forcing us to higher levels of thought. Pitting my brain against yours is hard. Pitting my program against yours—teaching one machine to spot and exploit another's subtle flaws—is much harder. The toughest chess matches in the world today aren't between players like Kramnik and Kasparov. They're between players like Fritz and Junior. May the best algorithm win.
When the cosmic game between humans and computers is complete, here's how the sequence of moves will read. In the opening, humans evolved through engagement with nature. In the middle game, we projected our intelligence onto computers and co-evolved through engagement with them. In the endgame, we merged computers with our minds and bodies, bringing that projected intelligence back into ourselves. The distinction between human and artificial intelligence turns out to have been artificial.
You don't have to be a machine to see the endgame unfolding. Last year, a Missouri teenager reached the third level of Space Invaders by operating the gun through wires attached to his brain. Today, the European Union is developing a cybernetic dental implant that can medicate you according to a dosage and schedule programmed by your doctor. In Russia, Kasparov has retired from chess and moved on to what he calls "larger competition"—leading a movement against the country's authoritarian regime. You can read all about it on his Web site. All you need is a computer.
A version of this article also appears in the Outlook section of the Sunday Washington Post.
Remarks from the Fray:
From a computational standpoint, chess is a piece of cake. It feels hard to us because we don't have dedicated cognitive machinery for doing that kind of thing. We have to co-opt other brain systems designed for other purposes (social interaction? Keeping track of foraging patches in our environment? Coordinating collective actions?) in order to play chess.
Now, compare the champion chess computers to the most advanced vision and facial recognition programs. We are nowhere near getting a computer to be able to make sense out of the dizzying confusion of light wavelengths that reach a camera lens. Sensing discreet objects, occlusions, distances, etc. are things that we do effortlessly, but (again) only because we have insanely complex but dedicated cognitive machinery for doing so.
So, interestingly, the harder something is for us, the easier it is to program a computer to do it. The simple stuff for us (walking, language, etc.) will be the tough stuff for computers. Hopefully, the more we learn about how hard it is to teach a computer to do something, the more people will realized that our traditional theories of human cognition (we just learn stuff) are way out of date. If it was just a matter of teaching and learning, then the easy and hard things for people and computers would be the same. Apparently, human cognitive development gives us a great deal of functionality for free, without having to learn much at all.
--Mangar
(To reply, click here.)
I have a ton of respect for chess players, but it's always been my opinion that the processor era has exposed an essential weakness of the game. It's 1-on-1 and can be broken with a little computational horsepower. In the 20th century, we've moved away from these kinds of heads up sports (like sprinting) towards team sports (soccer) with a heavy emphasis on improvisation and teamwork.
Part of why computers can dominate us in chess is because it's an essentially finite game against a single opponent. But no one has invented a script that can sit at a table of 9 poker players (even of mediocre skill) and come out on top at an above-average rate. Managing your chips against a group of players who have varying levels of aggression and skill may be a more specialized human trait than we've realized. Chess has a long pedigree of intellectual credibility, but maybe poker is a better place to test the limits of an AI. Similarly, when a script can beat out hedge fund managers time and time again, maybe we'll know that it's time to take a collective vacation as a species. But I think that day is still a ways off.
We used to think that memorization was the key link to intelligence -- until Ctrl-C wiped that smile off our faces. Retaining information is actually not something we're terribly impressive at. The decoupling of intelligence and chess is just another sign that 19th century notions of our own strengths and weaknesses are finally giving way to a more realistic sense of our skills. Maybe when we get around to inventing a game of chess that seats 10 players instead of 2, we'll finally start beating the machines again.
--CaptainBadonkadonk
(To reply, click here.)
(5/14)
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Remarks from the Fray:
From a computational standpoint, chess is a piece of cake. It feels hard to us because we don't have dedicated cognitive machinery for doing that kind of thing. We have to co-opt other brain systems designed for other purposes (social interaction? Keeping track of foraging patches in our environment? Coordinating collective actions?) in order to play chess.
Now, compare the champion chess computers to the most advanced vision and facial recognition programs. We are nowhere near getting a computer to be able to make sense out of the dizzying confusion of light wavelengths that reach a camera lens. Sensing discreet objects, occlusions, distances, etc. are things that we do effortlessly, but (again) only because we have insanely complex but dedicated cognitive machinery for doing so.
So, interestingly, the harder something is for us, the easier it is to program a computer to do it. The simple stuff for us (walking, language, etc.) will be the tough stuff for computers. Hopefully, the more we learn about how hard it is to teach a computer to do something, the more people will realized that our traditional theories of human cognition (we just learn stuff) are way out of date. If it was just a matter of teaching and learning, then the easy and hard things for people and computers would be the same. Apparently, human cognitive development gives us a great deal of functionality for free, without having to learn much at all.
--Mangar
(To reply, click here.)
I have a ton of respect for chess players, but it's always been my opinion that the processor era has exposed an essential weakness of the game. It's 1-on-1 and can be broken with a little computational horsepower. In the 20th century, we've moved away from these kinds of heads up sports (like sprinting) towards team sports (soccer) with a heavy emphasis on improvisation and teamwork.
Part of why computers can dominate us in chess is because it's an essentially finite game against a single opponent. But no one has invented a script that can sit at a table of 9 poker players (even of mediocre skill) and come out on top at an above-average rate. Managing your chips against a group of players who have varying levels of aggression and skill may be a more specialized human trait than we've realized. Chess has a long pedigree of intellectual credibility, but maybe poker is a better place to test the limits of an AI. Similarly, when a script can beat out hedge fund managers time and time again, maybe we'll know that it's time to take a collective vacation as a species. But I think that day is still a ways off.
We used to think that memorization was the key link to intelligence -- until Ctrl-C wiped that smile off our faces. Retaining information is actually not something we're terribly impressive at. The decoupling of intelligence and chess is just another sign that 19th century notions of our own strengths and weaknesses are finally giving way to a more realistic sense of our skills. Maybe when we get around to inventing a game of chess that seats 10 players instead of 2, we'll finally start beating the machines again.
--CaptainBadonkadonk
(To reply, click here.)
(5/14)