Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov
Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov was a pair of six-game chess matches between then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov and an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue. Kasparov won the first match, held in Philadelphia in 1996, by 4–2. Deep Blue won a 1997 rematch held in New York City by 3½–2½. The second match was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer under tournament conditions, and was the subject of a documentary film, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine.
Impact and symbolic significance[edit]
Both matches were widely covered by the media, and Deep Blue became a celebrity.[1][2] After the match, it was reported that IBM had dismantled Deep Blue, but in fact it remained in operation for several years.[3]
Prizes were awarded for both matches by the sponsor, IBM Research, with Deep Blue's share going back to IBM. For the first match, the winner was awarded $400,000 and the loser $100,000; for the second match, the winner was awarded $700,000 and the loser $400,000. Carnegie Mellon University awarded an additional $100,000 to the Deep Blue team, a prize created by computer science professor Edward Fredkin in 1980 for the first computer program to beat a reigning world chess champion.[4][5]
Deep Blue's win was seen as symbolically significant, a sign that artificial intelligence was catching up to human intelligence, and could defeat one of humanity's great intellectual champions.[6] Later analysis tended to play down Kasparov's loss as a result of uncharacteristically bad play on Kasparov's part, and play down the intellectual value of chess as a game that can be defeated by brute force.[7][8]
In a podcast discussion in December 2016, Kasparov reflected on his views of the match. He mentioned that after thorough research and introspection while writing a book, his perspective shifted. He acknowledged his increased respect for the Deep Blue team and a decrease in his opinion of both his own and Deep Blue's performance. He noted the evolution of chess engines, indicating that modern ones easily surpass Deep Blue.[9]
After Deep Blue's victory, the ancient Chinese game of Go, a game of simple rules and far more possible moves than chess, became the canonical example of a game where humans outmatched machines. Go requires more intuition and is far less susceptible to brute force.[10] It is widely played in China, South Korea, and Japan, and was considered one of the four arts of the Chinese scholar in antiquity. In 1997, many players with less than a year of experience could beat the best Go programs.[11] But the programs gradually improved, and in 2015, Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program defeated the European Go champion Fan Hui in a private match. It then surprisingly defeated top-ranked Lee Sedol in the match AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol in 2016.[12] While Deep Blue mainly relied on brute computational force to evaluate millions of positions, AlphaGo also relied on neural networks and reinforcement learning.
1997 rematch[edit]
Game 1 [edit]
May 3. The 1997 rematch began with a line of the Réti Opening which later developed into the King's Indian Attack. Kasparov won the game in 45 moves.