Human-Computer Chess Matches

Finch plays chess with the Machine (copy from YouTube)

In Person of Interest, there is a scene Finch teaching the Machine play chess. Cheese always seems to be an important way to test the calculation ability of computer. And chess test always be treated to a crucial stage of Artificial Intelligence. So this week, I am going to write something on computer playing chess.

copy from scifiempire

The reason scientists choose chess to test computer is probably because Turing test is way too hard for computer to finish. Although chess test does not make computer has independent awareness, playing chess needs extreme fast calculation. Experts who are good at playing chess, people usually will consider them smart, however, computer cannot be defined as smart. Computer is a storage of data, knowledge and information. It has the ability to pull data out very fast, but it does not generate ideas by itself. When computer plays chess, it evaluates every possible move, and eventually choose the step which has bigger possibility to win. An approximately calculation estimates that for a computer to win, it needs to calculate for almost 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible solutions. People on the other hand, separate the target which is victory into different steps. We do not have a whole plan planed out when we just start the game. We beat competitor by achieving small goals. For example in chess, we would think take out opponent’s horse first, than we go after the knight. We usually will not think how to kill the king right after we start, right? So, the ways humans play chess and computers play chess are completely different. However, chess test certainly reflects the calculation ability of computer.

computer Deep Blue (copy from wiki

The most famous games in the history happened between a computer called Deep Blue and a Russian world champion. Deep Blue was an IBM chess playing computer. This computer won its first game against the world champion --Garry Kasparov in 1996. This was an important moment in computer history, because beating Garry Kasparov meant that IBM computer already achieved the impossible amount of calculation. After Deep Blue, people have more interests to compete the ability of human brains with computer.  

copy from: Forbes

computer Watson (copy from Wikipedia)

Several years ago an American TV show called Jeopardy! hold a contest between computer and human. This show invites smart persons to compete with IBM computer. Watson is the new computer, designing to answer any question, although I think it is kind of cheating for a computer to compete with human on something needed to be memorized. But, the point of holding this show and racing the “intelligence” of human with computer is to better tests the capability of computer, and utilize computer in people’s daily lives.

Computer playing chess is go long a hard thing, though for artificial intelligence to become a real thing in the world still requires tons of studies. Computer can already do better than human beings on a lot of things, and we shall estimate the creation of artificial intelligence will be in the near future.