1996: The first chess game between a human champion and a computer takes place, with international grandmaster Garry Kasparov losing to IBM’s Deep Blue in Philadelphia.

Had Kasparov gone on to lose the whole match, it would have only stoked the fears of those believers in a dystopian world where man is ruled by his inventions.

But Kasparov, who became the world’s youngest grand master in 1985 at the age of 22, recovered his equilibrium after his initial stumble. He won the next game, then drew twice before taking Games 5 and 6 to win the match, 4-2.

Kasparov lost a rematch to Deep Blue the following year — his first match loss ever to any kind of opponent. Then, in 2001, he managed a 3-3 draw against Deep Junior, an entirely different software program.

Aside from their stunt value, these man-vs.-computer matches have changed the way that chess is played, and not necessarily for the better. “We don’t work at chess anymore,” complained grandmaster Evgeny Bareev. “We just look at the stupid computer, we follow the latest games and find small improvements. We have lost depth.”

Others, however, are more philosophical: “Cars can outrun us, but that hasn’t stopped us from having foot races,” said U.S. grandmaster Maurice Ashley. “Even if a computer is the best player on the planet, I’ll still want to go around the corner, set up the chess pieces and try to kick your butt.”

Matt Blum assayed the significance of the first match on Wired.com’s GeekDad blog in 2010:

While nobody could have known at the time, this was the moment when machines truly began their conquest of Earth. Despite Kasparov rebounding from his first-game loss to beat Deep Blue in the match, the computer’s win demonstrated the inevitability of the rise of artificially intelligent devices. When the upgraded Deep Blue won the rematch against Kasparov the following year, there were those who thought this presaged humanity’s downfall, but they were largely scoffed at as conspiracy theorists.

So raise a glass in toast to our robot overlords… Did I say “overlords?” I meant “protectors.”

Source: Various

Photo: Kasparov battles Deep Blue in 1997.

An earlier version of this article appeared on Wired.com Feb. 10, 2007.

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