"In 1985, at the tender age of 22, I played against 32 chess computers at the same time in Hamburg, West Germany. Believe it or not, I beat all 32 of them. Those were the golden days for me. Computers were weak, and my hair was strong. Just 12 years later, in 1997, I was in New York City fighting for my chess life against just one machine: a $10 million IBM supercomputer nicknamed Deep Blue."
"It was actually a rematch. I like to remind people that I beat the machine the year before in Philadelphia. And this battle became the most famous human-machine competition in history. Newsweek's cover called it "The Brain's Last Stand." No pressure. It was my own John Henry moment, but I lived to tell the tale. A flurry of books compared the computer's victory to the Wright brothers' first flight and the moon landing."
"So are we repeating that cycle of hype and hysteria? Of course, artificial intelligence is far more intelligent than all chess machines. Large language models like ChatGPT can perform complex tasks in areas as diverse as law, art, and, of course, helping our kids cheat on their homework. But are these machines intelligent? Are they approaching so-called AGI-or artificial general intelligence-that matches or surpasses humans?"
AI remains a tool rather than a guarantee of dystopia or utopia. Historical chess competitions show machines progressing rapidly from weak opponents to supercomputers capable of defeating top humans. Large language models can perform complex tasks across law, art, and education, raising questions about true intelligence and the pathway to artificial general intelligence. Moral outcomes depend on human actions and governance rather than on machines themselves. Democratic safeguards, oversight, and responsible deployment are necessary to prevent powerful AI tools from harming fragile democratic systems and to ensure benefits are broadly shared.
Read at The Atlantic
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