Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins

by Garry Kasparov

So, when we say a GM has a rating of 2700, that is the balance of his performance over hundreds of games. It’s a very small margin for error, with the exception of very young players and a tiny handful of wildly inconsistent GMs. Chess machines aren’t like this at all. When I was asked after the first match about Deep Blue’s strength, estimated by the result at 2700, I said, “Yes, 2700 maybe, but 3100 in some positions and 2300 in others.” In sharp, tactical play, Deep Blue could be counted on to perform far above even my level 2800+ level. This was true even of the PC engines that were still relatively weak at the time. In closed maneuvering positions, where Deep Blue’s powers of calculation were muted, it could make strange and pointless moves that even a weak human master would never consider on general principles. Its evaluation ability was weak overall and, in some areas, such as a few I exploited in our match, it was terrible.