A fascinating piece on chess computers versus people by Gary Kasparov in The New York Review of Books. With the defeat of humans by compiuters – Kasparov claims that these days Grand Masters would be challenged by many $50 programs – chess is now a new game. Broader issues of strategy matter more than tactics and there is the possibility of tandem people+machine competiting among themselves. Chess as a game of full information is under attack from games with randomness where bluffing and psychology play a role – the current poker boom is an instance – but even here computers are making inroads. Kasparov is a thoughtful, unaffected guy and positions himself well – as the first of the Grand Masters to lose to a computer – to understand the broader implications of this development.
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