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Brain vs. Computer: Place Your Bets

Posted by timothy on from the 20-on-the-computer dept.

dev_null_ziggy writes: "CNN reports that the current chess guru is going up against a supercomputer, amusingly titled 'Deep Fritz.' The match is scheduled for October, and the current champion, Vladimir Kramnik, stands to win $1 Million dollars if he wins. Of course, since he'll be snagging $800k for a draw, and $600k for a loss ... I'll give two to one odds on the machine."

1 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Deep Blue vs. Deep Fritz by Skuto · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's interesting that the programmer of Deep
    Fritz (Franz Morsch) has been mouthing off that
    his program is ready for Kramnik and should be
    equal to Deep Blue.

    They played in the Dutch Championships last year
    and couldn't even manage to win. Now they're
    saying they stand a chance vs the World Champion?
    Well, if he goes too hard on vodka maybe.

    This match is simply marketing. They know their
    computer is going to lose, but unlike IBM, those
    guys actually _sell_ their chesscomputers. And
    many people are going to want the one that was
    good enough to play the World Champion.
    They even 'fixed' the qualifier for this event
    so that only their programs played (Deep Fritz
    and Deep Junior are both from the German ChessBase
    company), nicely blocking out the computer World
    Champion (Shredder), as well as blocking out most
    other strong contenders (Crafty, Tiger, Rebel,
    Hiarcs, Nimzo, Diep, etc...) on false grounds.

    So, please don't say this match is anything like
    Deep Blue - Kasparov. Fritz is significantly slower
    and stupider, no matter what they would want you
    to believe. This is in no way the best chess
    computer to have ever existed.

    Also, don't say this is the end of human
    intelligence
    if Kramnik loses. Not until a go program starts
    beating me, at last :)

    --
    GCP