#Chess AI

The exhilarating early years when Arthur Samuel's checkers program learned to beat its creator, when chess programs first challenged amateur players, and when every new demonstration felt like proof that general machine intelligence was just around the corner. What those early programs actually did, why they were so impressive, and why the gap between their performance and genuine intelligence was wider than it appeared.

The full story of the chess match that divided history — the two games, the controversy, Kasparov's accusations that IBM had cheated, the cultural earthquake of a machine defeating the greatest chess player alive, and what it actually meant for AI, for human exceptionalism, and for the question of what it means to think. The most watched intellectual contest in history.