Garry Kasparov’s next move: teaming up with machines – Toronto Star

If the startling progress of artificial intelligence suggests well soon be bowing down to our robot overlords, Garry Kasparov advises us: Dont panic.

Yes, that Garry Kasparov, the Russian former world chess champion who infamously lost to IBMs computer Deep Blue in 1997, sparking existential dread that humans were on their way to obsolescence.

But as Kasparov reminds us in his new book, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins, he had defeated Deep Blue the year before and, after his loss, IBM refused to offer a rubber match.

On the phone from his New York City home, Kasparov maintains that this was a pure corporate decision: they evaluated that the next match would be uncertain.

Looking back at that time, Kasparov realizes how much help the computer had behind the scenes, from fallible humans. And even todays much-improved chess programs, it seems, lose out to humans and machines working in tandem. In other words: if you cant beat IBM, join em.

Human-machine teams can take advantage of the formers intuition and the latters deduction, says Kasparov, and they point the way to an ideal collaboration in our work and our daily lives. He calls Tesla guru Elon Musks latest venture, the development of a brain/computer interface, a move in the right direction.

In the future, will we all be cyborgs with chess engines connected to our brains? We dont know, says Kasparov. And many people are afraid of hearing, We dont know. I encourage it. If you dont know, thats not the reason to stop.

Since retiring from professional chess in 2005, Kasparov has become a polymath: campaigning for human rights, organizing opposition to Vladimir Putin, giving corporate speeches and spending time at Oxford Universitys Future of Humanity Institute, where researchers have worked toward whole brain emulation or recreating the work of a brain in software.

Kasparovs book, which was out May 2, offers a potted history of AI, focusing on the quest to produce an unbeatable chess-playing machine, which became a common goal among researchers because of what he calls the questionable mystique that chess prowess represents intelligence.

In the early days, programmers wanted machines to analyze patterns and zoom in on potentially good moves (as humans do), but with the advance of calculating power it became much more effective to try brute force: figuring out potential outcomes of all possible moves in one particular position, a certain number of moves ahead.

This worked tremendously for chess but not for producing smarts: Deep Blue, Kasparov insists, was in fact as intelligent as an alarm clock. Having beaten Kasparov, IBM took its AI in more promising directions toward programs that gather data and then extrapolate.

Other companies have done so too: a version of Googles self-learning computer program Alpha Go has beaten many of the worlds best players of Go, the ancient Chinese strategy game that is far more complex than chess. There is, however, a troubling technical issue.

The program, says Kasparov, learns in ways that are impossible for us even to contemplate. . . . The creators dont know why one version of Alpha Go plays better than the other. If theres a glitch in Alpha Go, Im not sure they know where to look.

An unfathomably wonky game-playing program is one thing, but what about AI-based stock traders, or doctors, or self-driving cars, where glitches could be disastrous? Humans can coach machines and, in Kasparovs view, our guidance and vision will enable both machines and humans to work better.

And we might as well make the most of this possibility, because the march of these programs, and their encroachment on our employment, is unstoppable.

Its progress. I think the only answer is to move forward, to create new industries, new opportunities where machines will have to rely on our intuition since well be entering new zones like reactivating space exploration, going deep underwater, creating situations where our creativity prevents us from becoming redundant.

But can everyone participate? His vision sounds suspiciously utopian. What do we do, for instance, about veteran industrial workers who are being laid off, for whom its a stretch to retrain as software designers? Kasparov admits he has no ready solution. They will be hijacked by populists from left or right. . . . It is a challenge, but if you try to stop this process by imposing restrictions theres no way you can win.

We just have to accommodate ourselves. This is part of our history as the human race. Some people could be more successful, some less. I lost to a machine, but Im promoting an idea of our co-operation, because thats a way to move into the future. And I dont want people to think about AI and machines as surrounded by the fog of secrecy.

Yet secrecy seems inevitable with AI, as its being developed by Silicon Valley. Are we to trust that big companies proprietary technology will have our interests at heart? Kasparov admits to some misgivings, but he notes that asking these companies to lift the veils from the way they develop their software could also cause problems. Their work could be then open to abuse from regimes such as Vladimir Putins, looking to adapt them for nefarious ends.

In other words, even though the machines arent out to get us, humans in control of these machines may yet be.

Lets move into the future with our eyes open, Kasparov warns. I hope that my book will help.

A dangerous game

Garry Kasparov is one of Vladimir Putins most outspoken critics; in his book Winter is Coming (2015), he set out his view of how the United States policy of appeasement has helped the Russian president. Here, he speaks about why Donald Trump, improbably, could change the game.

Whats your take on the aftermath of the cruise missile attack on Syria, with relations between the U.S. and Russia now said to be at a low point?

Relations were already at a low point. Putins propaganda has been using America as a scapegoat for any failures of domestic policy; America, as a sworn enemy, was on Russian television for years. Obama could pretend that they were looking for common ground. The Trump administration simply recognized reality.

Trump has very strong survival instincts; the man has survived so many bankruptcies. The way for him to survive as a politician is to do something good for America. If it goes against what he said on the campaign trail and he said many stupid things there so be it. Trump clearly sees that his personal strategic interest is now to comply with American interests and the interests of American traditional allies. Thats why he changed his views on NATO, on the Middle East, on China.

What implications might this have for Putin?

It could have huge implications, because his bluff is (being called) by a power far more capable of creating damage. I think psychologically it had a huge effect, because after eight years of Obamas inaction and attempts to pacify every conflict, America is back in the game. Now, Putin will have great difficulties convincing the Russian military to go into another engagement.

I think it will restrain Putins power to cause damage, (but) its one move. When you are in a very complicated, dangerous position, one good move doesnt solve all the problems.

Read the original here:

Garry Kasparov's next move: teaming up with machines - Toronto Star