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The article makes a surprising and unattributed assertion, "Mr. Kasparov’s obsession with Deep Blue’s surprising strategic insight was partly responsible for hi

The article makes a surprising and unattributed assertion, "Mr. Kasparov’s obsession with Deep Blue’s surprising strategic insight was partly responsible for his loss in their 1997 match. Today, smartphones play better than IBM ’s supercomputer did then." Does anyone have a link or attribution for this? I would be gobsmacked to learn that 2015 smartphones play better chess than Deep Blue in 1997. Could this possibly be true?

jrpt 12y ago
I was curious too so I Googled it. Looks like it's true: http://www.phonearena.com/news/A-modern-smartphone-or-a-vintage-supercomputer-which-is-more-powerful_id57149 http://www.phonearena.com/news/A-modern-smartphone-or-a-vint... You'd still need the right chess AI running on it but smartphones today are more powerful than Deep Blue, apparently.
jules 12y ago
Since 1997 we've had 12 Moore's law doublings in transistor count (4096x), and chess algorithms have improved quite a bit. http://www.quora.com/How-does-Deep-Blues-playing-strength-and-algorithms-compare-to-modern-chess-engines-eg-Houdini http://www.quora.com/How-does-Deep-Blues-playing-strength-an... http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desktop-challenge http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desk...
ChrisLomont 12y ago
This link [1] claims Komodo 8 on an android phone from 2013 should be around 3000 strength, far stronger than Deep Blue. [1] http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desktop-challenge http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desk...
Athas 12y ago
You have to remember that Deep Blue was not a top-of-the-line supercomputer in 1997. It was a large machine for sure, but the software made it a chess champion, not just the raw hardware. Many 1997-era computers were faster.
- Someone 12y ago
  But it did have quite a bit of custom, chess-specific hardware. http://chess.wikia.com/wiki/Deep_Blue http://chess.wikia.com/wiki/Deep_Blue: "It was a massively parallel, 30-node, RS/6000, SP-based computer system enhanced with 480 special purpose VLSI chess chips" Also, http://www.csis.pace.edu/~ctappert/dps/pdf/ai-chess-deep.pdf http://www.csis.pace.edu/~ctappert/dps/pdf/ai-chess-deep.pdf states that the VLSI chips "provided most of Deep Blue's computational power." That page also answers a question elsewhere on this page about whether computer+human can beat computer. As long as the computer is imperfect, humans may be able to analyze and improve it. In particular, Deep Blue had a weakness that it couldn't learn about. Programmers changed its program to correct for it: "The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play revealed during the course of the match. This allowed the computer to avoid a trap in the final game that it had fallen for twice before."
lazyant 12y ago
Attributing to Deep Blue a "surprising strategic insight" is just anthropomorphism, since the 'insight' was basically another result of brute force, it's just probably the humans didn't see it coming.
- kruczek 12y ago
  Actually it is more interesting than that. That "surprising strategic insight" was not simply a result of brute force, but a result of a bug that threw Kasparov off balance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov#Game_1_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov...

jrpt 12y ago

I was curious too so I Googled it. Looks like it's true: http://www.phonearena.com/news/A-modern-smartphone-or-a-vintage-supercomputer-which-is-more-powerful_id57149 http://www.phonearena.com/news/A-modern-smartphone-or-a-vint... You'd still need the right chess AI running on it but smartphones today are more powerful than Deep Blue, apparently.

jules 12y ago

Since 1997 we've had 12 Moore's law doublings in transistor count (4096x), and chess algorithms have improved quite a bit. http://www.quora.com/How-does-Deep-Blues-playing-strength-and-algorithms-compare-to-modern-chess-engines-eg-Houdini http://www.quora.com/How-does-Deep-Blues-playing-strength-an... http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desktop-challenge http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desk...

ChrisLomont 12y ago

This link [1] claims Komodo 8 on an android phone from 2013 should be around 3000 strength, far stronger than Deep Blue. [1] http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desktop-challenge http://en.chessbase.com/post/komodo-8-the-smartphone-vs-desk...

Athas 12y ago

You have to remember that Deep Blue was not a top-of-the-line supercomputer in 1997. It was a large machine for sure, but the software made it a chess champion, not just the raw hardware. Many 1997-era computers were faster.

Someone 12y ago
But it did have quite a bit of custom, chess-specific hardware. http://chess.wikia.com/wiki/Deep_Blue http://chess.wikia.com/wiki/Deep_Blue: "It was a massively parallel, 30-node, RS/6000, SP-based computer system enhanced with 480 special purpose VLSI chess chips" Also, http://www.csis.pace.edu/~ctappert/dps/pdf/ai-chess-deep.pdf http://www.csis.pace.edu/~ctappert/dps/pdf/ai-chess-deep.pdf states that the VLSI chips "provided most of Deep Blue's computational power." That page also answers a question elsewhere on this page about whether computer+human can beat computer. As long as the computer is imperfect, humans may be able to analyze and improve it. In particular, Deep Blue had a weakness that it couldn't learn about. Programmers changed its program to correct for it: "The rules provided for the developers to modify the program between games, an opportunity they said they used to shore up weaknesses in the computer's play revealed during the course of the match. This allowed the computer to avoid a trap in the final game that it had fallen for twice before."

lazyant 12y ago

Attributing to Deep Blue a "surprising strategic insight" is just anthropomorphism, since the 'insight' was basically another result of brute force, it's just probably the humans didn't see it coming.

kruczek 12y ago
Actually it is more interesting than that. That "surprising strategic insight" was not simply a result of brute force, but a result of a bug that threw Kasparov off balance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov#Game_1_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov...