Deus Ex Machina - A Higher Creative Species in the Game of Chess

basic paradigm that computer programs employ is known as “search and evaluate.” Their static evaluation is arguably more primitive than the perceptual one of humans. Yet the intelligence emerging from them is phenomenal. A human spectator cannot tell the difference between a brilliant computer game and one played by Kasparov. Chess played by today’s machines looks extraordinary, full of imagination and creativity. Such elements may be the reason that computers are superior to humans in the sport of kings, at least for the moment. Not surprisingly, the superiority of computers over humans in chess provokes antagonism. The frustrated critics often revert to the analogy of a competition between a racing car and a human being, which by now has become a cliché. In 2007, Amir Ban (my partner) and I flew to Elista, capital of Kalmkya, to take part in a chess match dubbed “The Ultimate Computer Chess Challenge.” Our program, Deep Junior, then the world computer chess champion, was to play a match against Deep Fritz, which a few months earlier had defeated Vladimir Kramnik, the world’s human chess champion. Parallel to the computers’ match, at the same venue, some of the best human chess players assembled to play in the semifinal tournament for the world title. FIDE, the international organizing body, had asked top commentators to annotate the games in both competitions. Among the commentators was Boris Spasky, the famous former world champion. Some of the games between Deep Junior and Deep Fritz were exciting: in one of them, Deep Junior was able to discover an important theoretical novelty in the Sicilian defense. After sacrificing no fewer than four pawns, it managed to find a winning Articles