Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins

by Garry Kasparov

After eight straight draws to start the match followed by a win, Anand lost four of the next five, essentially ending the match with six games still remaining. Anand did not suddenly become a much worse player after game ten, nor did I become a much stronger one. And as much credit as I would like to give my team and me for our opening surprises, they weren’t what made Anand play far below his usual level for that horrible stretch. He lost one game to a strong novelty, was faced with a surprising defense in the next game and blundered, and was never able to recover the composure required for consistency. In a way, it was lucky I hadn’t found that strong novelty in my pre-match preparation. Had the fateful tenth game instead been the second game, he would have had time to recover. This isn’t a critique of Vishy Anand; it’s a critique of humanness. A similar syndrome would envelope me eighteen months later in my rematch with Deep Blue, and being aware of it was useless in countering its effects.