Encore: Thinking Machines | How Do You Make A Computer Blink? | 2

American Innovations

Wondery

Steven Johnson, History, Kids & Family, Education For Kids, Science

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2020

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

With six different kinds of pieces, 64 squares to move in, and billions of possible combinations of moves, chess is a good test for a computer. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the visible universe. For all intents and purposes: almost infinite.

Gary Kasparov is the world’s best chess player. Deep Blue is a computer. It’s humanity v machine. There’s a lot at stake and things turn controversial fast with accusations of cheating, a very human meltdown and a computer that hallucinates.

Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American innovations, add free on Amazon music, download
0:06.0	the app today.
0:09.6	It's a fine June day in Hamburg, Germany, in 1985.
0:23.2	Inside a small auditorium, Gary Kasperov paces like a caged animal.
0:28.5	He's dressed casually in a red and white striped t-shirt and a drab green windbreaker, and
0:33.5	he's penned in by a square of 32 tables, each with a chessboard on top.
0:39.7	Kasperov has thick, dark hair and bushy eyebrows to match.
0:44.2	It's widely believed there has never been a chess player so strong on the planet.
0:49.2	In less than six months' time, the 22-year-old will become world champion for the first
0:54.4	time.
0:55.4	Today, he's playing what's called a simile, an exhibition where Grandmaster takes on multiple
1:00.4	challenges at the same time.
1:03.5	Each of his 32 opponents is a computer.
1:06.9	And eight of them are branded with his name, thanks to a deal with the electronics company
1:11.2	Saitek.
1:12.9	Kasperov circles around the tables with his characteristic swift gait, taking on each
1:17.6	board and moving the pieces almost without breaking step.
1:21.2	He's never played a computer in public before, let alone 32, but he doesn't break a
1:25.8	sweat.
1:26.8	And one of his namesake computers, he stops for a moment, puzzled.
1:31.9	But just for a moment, and then he makes a decisive move.
1:35.2	Checkmate.
	...

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