Ajith Vijay Kumar
The man and his machine are at odds. With each passing day, the impossibility of the situation is growing as humans and computers are increasingly forced to cohabitate, even as they try to take over the other. It is assumed that in the technologically dependent age we live in both can’t live without each other, but who is superior?
Computers for sure, some would say, but there are others like Garry Kasparov, the greatest ever to have held sway over the checkered chess board, who believe that the way forward is not in a ‘straight line’ as being presumed.
He is someone who has literally fought back computer dominance in more ways than one.
It happened in 1997. Deep Blue- the chess playing IBM computer defeated Kasparov, who was at that time the reigning world chess champion.
Although it is 13 years since the event, which in more ways than one changed the way the world perceives computers and their capabilities, the fact that it was Kasparov is what made the defeat of our species so stunning.
Consider this:
In 1985, Kasparov – the invincible - played simultaneous games against 32 dedicated chess computers; he won 32-0.
A decade later, in 1996, he beat Deep Blue 4-2.
Then in a re-match in 1997, the Deep Blue (unofficially nicknamed "Deeper Blue") beat Kasparov by winning the six-game match 3½–2½ under standard chess tournament time controls.
Just a decade of advancement in computing technology and the world champ was defeated!
But the story doesn’t end there. Forget supercomputers like the Deep Blue; in 2003 Kasparov sparred with two commercially available chess programs – of the sort available off the counter.
The result: Both matches ended in similar ties.
Then in 2005, Hydra – the super chess program – beat Michael Adams 5.0-0.5 while the undisputed world champ of 2006, Vadimir Kramnik, was put on the mat 4-2 by another chess wizard Deep Fritz.
In Kasparov’s words, “The computers quickly went from too weak to too strong.”
The change of tide in chess also led to the start of a worldwide debate on the future of the relationship between humans and computers.
So, do we, as a species, stand a chance against the Artificial Intelligence that’s our own making?
Was Kasparov's loss a sign that inanimate silicon chips have become smarter than us? Is the ghoul of Dr. Frankenstein beginning to take an even more sinister form?
On the face of it, they do tend to have overtaken us. They can now ‘calculate’ at a blistering pace; light years ahead of the biological speed. For example, the Jaguar supercomputer can perform more than 2 quadrillion calculations every second. By comparison, estimates suggest that our brain has a processing speed of only about 100 trillion calculations per second.
And, what adds to the excitement about the ‘impending’ machine era is the long list of believers. Leading the pack is ‘futurologist’ Ray Kurzweil, who feels that computer power will match the intelligence of human beings within the next decade or so.
“There will be 32 times more technical progress during the next half century than there was in the entire 20th century, and one of the outcomes is that artificial intelligence could be on a par with human intellect by the 2020s,” Kurzweil opines.
Isn’t there more to intelligence than just plain computing speed? Isn’t decision making a factor of other important physiological attributes too?
But Kurzweil is firm in his conviction that machines will get the better of humans in the near future. Wishful thinking!
Kasparov believes otherwise. As per him - after due research - the pronounced facet of the future will be the development of a symbiotic relationship between the two. What computers are good at, the humans are weak and vice versa - and when the computing prowess of the system combines with the human intellect, the resultant ‘machine’ is the strongest of them all.
As per the arrangement, the computer does the various permutations and combinations that are needed to carry out a process, while the human part of the ‘machine’ focuses on the strategic planning – thereby overcoming both cognitive and computational deficits.
Although, Kasparov’s research was only meant to devise a way to identify the ‘best move’ in each step of a chess game, the connotations go further. If it can work for something as seeped in logic as chess, imagine what it can do for tasks that require strong human ‘creative’ input.
In Kasparov’s words: "Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process."
So, what’s the way forward? A world dominated by the smart machines or a world that’s ruled in tandem by the powerful duo - humans + computers?
There are no clear answers just yet. Whatever may be the outcome, the times are surely interesting!
April 13 is Garry Kasparov’s birthday
First Published: Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 17:15