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Chess engines overtook human chess players more than a decade or two ago and human chess is thriving. Activities don't become less rewarding for you simply beca
by Barrin92 3y ago
Chess engines overtook human chess players more than a decade or two ago and human chess is thriving. Activities don't become less rewarding for you simply because someone else is better at it, even if that's a machine. A robotic arm can probably lift more than I do, doesn't take my enjoyment from working out away. And people enjoy the human aspect and narrative in any activity in its own right.
And that's the worst case in a way, because a chess computer is a really stupid machine. Getting beaten by minimax is kind of annoying. AGIs on the other hand if they ever exist will be very fascinating entities indeed and I wouldn't mind if they're better at anything than I am. And the same goes for scientific research. I haven't stopped doing math because Terence Tao is better than I'll ever be. How many people can seriously claim to be at the frontiers of science? The value in learning isn't in being the best guy or girl there is.
- MicropenisMike 3y agoChess is a leisure activity, not work, you cannot compare the impact of automation of the two. Also, chess engines did kill chess. Chess used to be a spectacle on the national stage, from 2000 up until Queen's Gambit and the following streamer boom, chess was largely dead. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Chess&hl=en https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Chess&hl...
- joshuahedlund 3y agoHuman chess is still an activity that earns people money tho
- MicropenisMike 3y agoEven today, there's a handful of people who make a full living off chess. The owners of chess.com, a few streamers, a handful of super GMs, and chess teachers, and the latter will be automated away. And prior to the explosion in popularity? Barely anyone.
- sanderjd 3y agoI'm extremely skeptical of the claim that engines killed mainstream interest in chess. The trend seems to only go back to 2004, which is not long enough. My sense growing up in the 90s was that chess was a niche thing for nerds. I think it seems somewhat more mainstream now than it was then, while remaining fundamentally a niche thing for nerds :) But it seems very clear to me that it never underwent the broad collapse that I remember being broadly predicted after Kasparov vs Deep Blue.
- brightlancer 3y agoMy anecdotal recollection is that Deep Blue is a big part of what put chess into everyone's mind and rejuvenated the mainstream interest in playing what had previously been a nerd niche.
- sanderjd 3y agoYep, that's how I remember it too.