Chess Terminator Robot Takes On Former World Champ 63
Zothecula writes with this excerpt from Gizmag: "For almost as long as we've had computers, humans have been trying to make ones that play chess. The most famous chess-playing computer of course is IBM's Deep Blue, which in 1997 defeated the then World Champion Garry Kasparov. But as powerful as Deep Blue was, it didn't actually move the chess pieces on its own. Perhaps that's a trivial task in comparison to beating the best chess player of all time, but it's still exciting to discover this recent video of a chess robot that more closely fits the true definition of a chess automaton." My favorite part: "Note that around the 2:45 mark Kramnik extends his hand offering a draw, but the robot – since it's not fitted with any kind of optical device – just keeps playing, very nearly taking off Kramnik's hand in the process!"
Re:Why extend a hand? (Score:4, Informative)
Kramnik decided to try and confuse the robot by putting a pawn between two squares, which seemed to work (the robot did nothing). He then fixed the location of the pawn and reset the timer. When the robot still didn't respond after a few seconds, he reached out to touch it and it started playing again.
=Smidge=
Re:Deep blue cheated (Score:1, Informative)
"In between games" that constituted the six game 1997 match, with the ultimate winning of the match deciding which party will be called victor.
The match rules allowed for this, so we can't say Garry didn't know. That said, they did diddle with the machine during the match, which has always made the claim of victory hollow to me. It lowered the bar. That it was a lowering which Garry agreed to, doesn't matter.