Chess vs Human

It is hard to distinguish between that that is better in chess Human or Artificial Intelligence. Some would say humans because of their critical thinking and throwing computer off guard. And others would say artificial intelligence like Deep Blue because of its capability to calculate upto 4,000,000 chess moves per second as compare to human chess player who could only calculate upto three moves in a second. But in my opinion I think human has the upper hand. Human plays better chess than Artificial Intelligence. We know that presently computers can only use the intelligence that is load in it.

It is not capable of thinking anything else as human minds can do so. All the moves that computer make are based on the series of calculations and this all based on the positions of the pieces on the chessboard. A computer chess program like Deep Blue makes its move by using its evaluation function. The evaluation function is an algorithm that measures the chess position. Positions with positive values are good for ‘White’ and positions with negative values are good for ‘Black’ (IBM Research – Deep Blue – Overview).

Here is where I think that human has the upper hand while playing chess with an artificial intelligence. Human chess players use their skills, judgment and previous experiences to decide about the moves they are going to make next (Connor, 1993). And artificial intelligence moves are based on its algorithms and so a human chess player can disturb its algorithms making an unusual move that artificial intelligence does not recognize. In 1996, Gary Kasparov beat Deep Blue by 4-2 in a “regulation-style match” held in Philadelphia.

Although Gary Kasparov lost the opening game to Deep Blue but he came game back and won the game 2. “Gary Kasparov won in an interesting ending, though due to programming errors the computer in that game played without any opening database. Two draws followed. Kasparov’s second win came in Game 5 after the IBM programmers refused a draw offer even though Deep Blue considered the position roughly equal. In this game, Deep Blue demonstrated its lack of understanding of the danger of a kingside pawn majority.

In Game 6, Kasparov totally outplayed Deep Blue by gaining a ecisive space advantage and by avoiding any weaknesses. In this game, Kasparov trapped the computer’s rook and bishop, in part because the IBM programmers had never properly adjusted a parameter that signals when bishops are trapped” (Lesson 4: Deep Blue vs. Kasparov). Here a human player skills, experience and critical thinking helped him to win the match against artificial intelligence. Also it also shows that artificial intelligence has flaws in its. And how can it not have flaws. Artificial intelligence is created by us ‘Humans’. And we are not the perfect being on this planet.

So how could we create something that is better or at our level in every circumstance of the life? We could not. We tried cloning and we failed in it to. So how could we create an artificial intelligence that is by no means different from us? We are not God, so we could not create anything like what He has created. “Although Man has done a pretty good job in creating his own complexities here on Earth, they’re still nowhere near what Nature has done on her own”(Artificial intelligence vs. Human intelligence). Furthermore, the human brain has the capacity to do anything.

Its possibilities are endless, which is why the imagination is so powerful. And computers lack the traits of humans; they are tools for our use and are limited physically. Computer cannot do anything on its own. Series of arguments and methods are inserted in it in order to preform an action. “But humans have the capacity to store information indefinitely, seeing as how we cannot be rebooted or turned off/on”(Intelligence: Artificial vs. Human). Also “The human brain is the most complex part of the human body if not the most complex subject known to human kind.

Although a computer may work on a complicated series of circuits and processors it is a relatively simple item to understand in comparison to the human brain. So many important functions of the brain is beyond our understanding and has un-quantifiable properties” (Artificial Intelligence). Thus a simple program, which uses artificial intelligence by no means, is capable of beating a complex human brain. Another important point is that Howard’s mentioned is that intelligence suddenly changed in the last 30 years, while several putative causal factors had been present since 1920, such as the fact that chess became a popular sport, many illions played.

Also chess participation rate was very high, chess was taught in schools and factories, and was identified early and given special training, sizeable government salaries, and overseas travel. Howard’s reasoning is that if these factors, rather than rising general intelligence, were the explanation for the decreasing age of younger chess top players after 1970 (Howard 1999). Its would not be reasonable to say that humans minds have no limits to its critical thinking but it has the power to make the correct decision while the artificial intelligence may not be capable of doing that.

All the artificial intelligence has is memory and the programs that are in it to perform the action. It cannot think on its own. It works on the algorithms and as soon as it is disturbed, artificial intelligence gets confused and makes the wrong moves. But a human chess player if in the same situation can make the right move that is need using his critical thinking, which is why I think that human play better chess than artificial intelligence.