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Comparing Man and Machine?
An anonymous reader asks: "Today Garry Kasparov's last of 4 chess matches with the computer X3D Fritz ended in a draw. The totals of all 4 games leave the two opponents tied 2 to 2, revealing that even though the technology has advanced significantly since Kasparov was beaten by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, the odds are not always on the side of brute computational power. This leads me to pose the question: is chess really a viable way to test whether man or machine is truly superior? Until AI becomes flexible enough to challenge us in arenas like art and music, what would be a better real-life competition?"
even though the technology has advanced significantly since Kasparov was beaten by IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, the odds are not always on the side of brute computational power.
Actually, Fritz has less brute computational power than Deep Blue. Fritz runs on standard PCs; in this case, a quad 2.8 GHz Xeon. Deep Blue ran on custom hardware, with 32 RS/6000 CPUs with 256 custom VLSI "chess processors". It was estimated to evaluate 100,000,000 positions per second.
The point is, Fritz is not a bigger number cruncher; it's better because it's "smarter", which to say, it has a better ability to judge the value of each position and to choose which avenues to explore.