On February 17, 1997 Garry Kasparov beat IBM’s Deep Blue in a 6-game match in Philadelphia, to great public rejoicing. However the story quickly becomes more complicated.

The second match raised many interesting questions. As you can see Kasparov won the first game. But an unexpected move in the second game unnerved him. Kasparov alleged that there was human intervention because a move was too human like.

Per official match rules, programmers can fix bugs identified during the game. According to The Conversation

One of Deep Blue designers has said that when a glitch prevented the computer from selecting one of the moves it had analysed, it instead made a random move that Kasparov misinterpreted as a deeper strategy.

The article went on to say that the bug was fixed for the second round.

Kasparov himself admitted that that move in Game Two rattled him so much that the next three games resulted in draws and finally his loss of the last game.

It seems unfair to me. Programmers are allowed to fix bugs in the computer systems while human players have to deal with emotional stress which computers do not. With their vast computing power the fact that humans are still able to beat them reaffirms my faith in the human race.

Readers with more expertise in computers or chess are invited to respond in the comments below.

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