Here are the rules, we said. Just win in your own sweet way. Immediately the game was redefined and moved into areas beyond human comprehension. The machine made baffling mid-game moves, perverse sacrifices, or it eccentrically exiled its queen to a remote corner. The purpose might become clear only in a devastating endgame. All this after a few hours’ rehearsal. Between breakfast and lunch the computer quietly outclassed centuries of human chess. Exhilarating. For the first few days, after we realised what it had achieved without us, Demis and I couldn’t stop laughing. Excitement, amazement.
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