DATE: Wednesday, May 14, 1997               TAG: 9705130003

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

COMPUTER CHESS BOLT FROM BLUE

So what should humans do now? Celebrate because a computer that they made and taught has gotten so good at chess? Or mourn because a machine outplayed a human?

In a six-game match that ended Sunday, an IBM computer named Deep Blue defeated world champion Garry Kasparov twice, tied him three times and lost to him once.

The first thing humans should do at this point is make excuses for the human. That's human nature.

Excuse one: The computer was too big. It weighed 1.4 tons, compared with Kasparov's weight of less than a tenth of a ton. Kasparov remains world chess champ - pound for pound. That's an important title in boxing and should be in chess.

Excuse two: Prior to the match, the computer, in effect, had advance game films of every significant tournament game Kasparov ever played. Meanwhile, Kasparov was kept in the dark about the new Deep Blue. Could Deep Blue go to the left? The right? Who knew? Kasparov has demanded, if a rematch is to be arranged, that he have printouts of the countless games Deep Blue played against other chessmasters so he can study Deep Blue's thought processes. Only in that way can Kasparov know nearly as much about Deep Blue as Deep Blue knows about him. Chess is war; and in war, advance knowledge is victory.

Excuse three: Deep Blue received a steady flow of electricity throughout the match, while Kasparov had to eat, sleep and worry about things humans worry about. For one thing, he became afraid of Deep Blue. To even the match somewhat, Deep Blue should be unplugged periodically or required to make do with four D batteries.

Excuse four: Deep Blue did not so much out-think Kasparov as out-memorize him. Its data base contained blow-by-blow accounts of most of the significant games ever played. Because the machine had memorized the best responses to the best moves ever made, Kasparov could beat it only by making moves that had never been made before. Unfortunately for Kasparov, most moves that have never been made were never made because they were no good.

Excuse five: Deep Blue didn't think better - only faster. It could examine 50 billion possible positions every three minutes. That is a lot of ``what ifs?'' in a game that essentially asks, ``what if?''

Shortly after Kasparov's defeat in the deciding sixth game, things rapidly turned quintessentially human.

Kasparov revealed himself to be a sore loser.

And the women's world chess champion, Susan Polgar, opined that the male chess champ ``didn't try his best'' and issued her own challenge to Deep Blue. In other words, she could do better. Given that Kasparov received $400,000 for losing to Deep Blue, we find Polgar's challenge understandable.

IBM plans to devote Deep Blue's $700,000 winner's purse to computer-chess research. We'll know for sure Deep Blue is becoming truly human if it issues a press release saying the next match ``isn't about money,'' then refuses to play again unless it gets to keep the prize.

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