What Deep Blue Tells Us About AI in 2017 – Backchannel

The room where it happened was decked out like a faux study--a place where a couple of friends might engage in a friendly game of chess. But the people at the chessboard were professionals, and only one was paid to play chess. One was IBM computer scientist Murray Campbell, whose job it was to move pieces at the instructions of a computer he helped program. He sat with an air of detachment mixed with anticipation, like a passenger on public transit not sure where the bus will stop. The other was world champion chess player Garry Kasparov, whose concentration was intense enough to start a fire in a rainforest. His head hovered over the chessboard as if trying to identify which piece was threatening to betray him.