[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] conversations with Tyler is produced by the mercada center at George Mason University Bridging the Gap between academic ideas and real world problems learn more at arcades.in conversations withth tyler.com I'm here with Gary Kasparov Gary of course is the world's greatest chess player ever but more importantly I think of him as a man who has never ever shied away from a challenge he is one of the
least complacent people I know truly Brave and courageous he has a new book out the title is deep thinking Gary of course himself is an extremely deep thinker in virtually all areas the subtitle is where machine intelligence ends and human creativity begins whereas in Gary's previous book while winter was coming this time around it's a little more cheery and at least in some regards s well finally spring has arrived Gary
thank you for coming on the podcast thanks for inviting me and you're right yeah this book is more cheery than the previous one so I thought it would be a good idea to keep a balance um and uh I think in both cases um I went against
the um dominant Trend at at the moment uh when the winter is coming uh was written and published um many people in here in this country or in in the Free World they had doubts about my strong statements about uh Russian dictator
Wladimir Putin um now regarding the uh this book deep thinking um when I uh was writing the book uh many people tend to believe Elon Musk step Hawking and other pessimists who predicted uh uh doomsday scenario um when uh uh uh artificial intelligence uh would inevitably take over our world and I this time I took um I took the opposite side optimistic side and U this book was an attempt to to write a real story of of um artificial
intelligence and um its connection to the game of chess why the founding fathers uh of computer science like Alan Turing and cl Shannon uh had such an affection for the game of chess and why they believe that solving the game of chess or more likely making machines capable of beating strongest players could help them to solve the problems of artificial intelligence and why by the way they were wrong let me ask you some
of my questions we'll start with topics related to your book if we think of computer chess as a kind of project along with alphago as somewhat of a a referendum on human intelligence that is for decades even centuries uh humans
have been trying to solve chass and go and play it better and understand how the games work and then artificial intelligence comes along computer chess and they teach us how far off we were so if you think of artificial intelligence
as teaching us something about humans what kind of mistakes we make how smart we are or how stupid we are how would you judge the results of of these referenda oh um I don't think the the the founding fathers of computer science had the same uh affection uh to go or shogy because they they were not familiar or had very little knowledge of these games that were played in other part of the in other part of the world now chess was a game
that for centuries had kind of an ultimate U uh sign uh uh Mark of of um unique um intelligence and uh it it was quite natural for them to look at the game of chess as as the milestone for uh breaking up um uh the
this mystery of human intelligence sure um and um what we discovered in 1997 when uh deep blue was successful in the match against uh current world champion and I was world champion at that time um that chess could be crunched by Brute Force
once Hardware got fast enough database got big enough algorithms got smart enough but even while DBL was Victorious it was anything but intelligent uh of course you can start arguing about the definition of intelligence because by uh
by the definition of its output the grandm level chest D was intelligent but but at this incredible speed uh at certain points dlue could reach uh uh phenomenal speed of even today it's phenomenal but 20 years ago it was
mindboggling of 200 million positions per second it offered us very little dreamt of insight into the mysteries of human human intelligence so you think humans are smarter than we might have thought no it's it's just different because it's any game whether it's chess or we can move on with G or shogi um still offers us limited um um area of human intelligence because at the end of the day the way we try we we're trying to
understand who is who is better in in in in in in in the respective game it will be a result win or loss and um machines have the size of have a de size of Advantage because they you may call they have Steady Hand yes humans are vulnerable because we we cannot keep the same level of vigilance required to play with the machines even if we understand chess as well as machines uh do uh even if we can survive the the brute force of
calculation but at the end of the day uh the pressure on a human player facing the machine is simply unbearable so when humans are playing chess and here I mean professional chess players what do you think is the major human systematic bias during the game is that they're not patient enough or they take too many chances they don't take enough chances what's the bias in us as human beings across the board oh I don't think humans at the highest
level are playing machines anymore so it's it's it's useless because you know they're the outcome oh sure but Carana sits down against Nakamura what biases do they exhibit in their play psychological biases no but it's are we
talking about two humans or two humans no that's another story because if you have two humans then you have two individuals and most likely they know each other I played I guess 182 games in the world championship matches and many
more games hundreds of games against other top players in in different competitions and uh I knew almost all my opponents I knew what to expect from them I knew what to expect from myself uh human chess um is is is a form of psychological warfare so it includes a psychological element because you should know how to play game against very specific opponent and sometimes not very often but sometimes you may look for um
for certain moves that may not be U may not be the best uh purely from chess point of view but they could create situation at at at um a chessboard that might um uh push your opponent of balance uh now with machine it's totally
different and it's the it's uh the humans are are facing an opponent that is not vulnerable to any psychological pressure and moreover opponent that doesn't care about what happened one move ago uh in any human human game you
always have not necessarily blunders or mistakes but inaccuracies because if we are reaching winning position complacency is is hard to avoid uh and so you think complacency is the main human bias you see in top chess games it's it's complacency if you're on a winning side but it could be also the desperation if you're on the losing side um one of the greatest problems against uh against any machine is how to to to
to uh deliver the final blow to to win the game even if you lucky and you get a very good position then again you have to play with Precision that is not required in human chess so everything that you learn throughout your professional career yes it just it's is suddenly is working against you um and my experience and I'm talking about best games played by top players tells me that inaccuracies are inevitable and any
inaccuracy Against the Machine even if you made already 45 good moves and four great moves but the fifth move that is simply inaccurate um may deny you victory that you think you deserve by playing brilliantly you don't have to
lose necessarily but if your position is really good but machine let me just emphasize machine playing against a machine uh um requires precision and concentration that I don't think it's it's can be achieved by humans in in in
in um in a regular game uh of Chess or or another game like go or shogy um I think it's if we want to continue this experiment or just to to put it in sort of in an extreme form I would say that if we have Magnus Carlson the current world champion um offered an opportunity to play against the computer uh say 10 games match uh on the conditions that he wins the match if he wins one game yes which means he can play all the games without thinking
about losing the game by making a mistake or just you know he can play with without this psych terrible psychological pressure maybe there's still a chance I would bet on the computer though would you I no but he has to win only one game I know but to win a game against R is very difficult I said if it were draw one game I might B no no no no draw I take no if if you're talk about drawing then you know um uh and Magnus plays white for instance
let's take Magnus I think it's it's still 5050 chance Magnus is pretty good so just drawing with now I'm talking about winning so this is not drawing you'll make few draws that's for sure I have no doubt about it now winning if
you give them this big handicap that he doesn't have to he doesn't have to think about losing the games it's all about concentrating and looking for the best moves I think there has a chance I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar I still
think it's below 50% but there's a chance there's a decent chance it's not uh it's not slim to none that the best play may win but again we're talking about handicap event um um so I I think that's the match the matches I played with d blue and and and and um following matches that I played with uh uh um deep junr and deep frits and the matches that kic played with deep frits um they just they they ended this the the story of
human machine competition on equal terms but they close this chapter um of uh of the um of the search of um the mysteries of human intelligence in in the realm of Chess now a lot of humans don't play chess but we're looking at a future where AI will make decisions about who gets a monetary loan who is diagnosed as being schizophrenic or bipolar uh how cars drive on the road increasingly is controlled by software the fact that the decisions of
the software are not so transparent and you see this also in computer chess how will ordinary human beings respond to the fact that more and more of their lives will be quote unquote controlled by these non-transparent processes that are too smart for them to understand um because in your book you I do you have emotional conflict de blue right exactly exactly and I'm just you know I'm just telling you that it's
inevitable there's certain things that are happening and it's called progress right uh this is the history of human civilization I think the whole history is is is a process of a steady process of replacing all forms of Labor by machines it start it started with um machines replacing farm animals and then manual laborers uh and then you know it kept growing and growing and growing there was a time I I I mentioned in the book
people didn't trust um uh um elevators without operators they thought it would be too dangerous it took a major strike and in the city of New York that was equal uh a major disaster if you had to climb to impire State Building with with paralyzed elevators um um I understand that today people are concerned about self-driving cars absolutely but when do theyve but now but just imagine there was a time I'm sure people were really concerned
they were they they were scared still of autopilots now I think you know if you tell them that autopilots don't work in the plane they they will not fly because because they they understand that again in the big numbers uh these decisions are still more uh uh more of the qualitative uh and um and while I understand that also the fear of people who might be losing jobs and they could see that machines are threatening the
their traditional livelihood but at the same time even even these people whose jobs are on chopping block of automation they also depend on the new wave of technology to uh generate economic growth and to create um sustainable new
jobs this is this is a cycle and uh and the the only difference with what we have been seeing throughout human history is that now Mach machines are coming after people with call degree political influence and Twitter accounts
but say I'm at the self checkout in the supermarket if something doesn't work I sometimes get fairly frustrated if I'm with a human cashier maybe a new person they're just training and they don't do it properly I don't get frustrated at all I'm very tolerant because it's a human but the machine is much harder for me just like it can be harder to play against deep blue than another human so are we doomed to a future where maybe
things work more effectively but we're just frustrated all the time because there's not the human- to human interaction to ease it's again it's this that's that's hard for us to imagine but we have been moving in this direction for a long time so the many things are just being done by machines already so that now machines will be more actively engaged in in in in human interaction uh I can hardly imagine the supermarket was
with no humans at all there will be other humans who will be supervising machines um and I think that's but you could run a supermarket with no humans I I think there are a few of them in Japan no yeah but I still think at the end of the day you need some humans get different kind of job because you understand exactly what you said frustration and certain accidents at the end of the day you run Supermarket to make profit you don't want your
customers to run away if they're unhappy so you will need maybe some human uh uh uh human machine psych psychologist you know to make sure that uh uh the customers the customer satisfaction will be up up up to up to a certain level but again which let's look at this at at at at this historical process so um uh machines that replace um ma Manual Labor uh they have allowed us to focus on developing our minds now um more intelligent machines more
intelligent machines um uh they um I understand that they they can um they they will they will take over uh more menial aspects of recognition H and will Elevate Our Lives towards curiosity creativity Beauty Joy you can continue
this this this this uh uh line uh we just have to understand that everything that we know how to do machines will eventually do better than us let's say there's a mortgage lending algorithm and someone charges that it's discriminatory
it lends too often say to to white people and not enough to black people and there's some kind of trial or regulatory inquiry and the first thing everyone realizes is that no human can even understand the algorithm much less judge it what happens then legally or is it simply the case that so many new chains of cause and effect are so non-transparent to us we don't even know what to do oh uh my answer is I don't know but that's
exactly you know the what why why we should not worry about the future because the problem with the future if we know what's going to happen yes that's that's always not good we all know uh that means that in in the in the situation that you described we'll need new kind of lawyers we'll need new kind of of um experts that will be able to solve these problems there will be redistribution of jobs there it's many jobs today like
drone operators or 3D printer managers or uh social media managers they didn't exist 10 years ago 15 years ago no doubt that in 10 15 years there will be many jobs maybe the best pay jobs that don't exist today and we don't even know how these jobs will look like um and um I think that's that's that's natural uh all we have to do is to just to realize that this process is inevitable and we we have to we have to prepare us
mentally but also to um to to have some sort of um safety cushions to help people that will have great difficulty in adjusting people people that that come from this from manufacturing jobs uh that manufacturing sector people that that are older and just and don't have the same knowledge of machines uh and how to make sure the society will um will not be shaken badly by by another uh dramatic shift in in in in in technology but say more and more
jobs are redistributed toward AI uh it can be very daunting to work with artificial intelligence so with deep blue they had Joel Benjamin who as you know is a very smart guy is our educational system up to the shift and won't it just mean the return to skilled labor just keeps on Rising and income distribution becomes less and less equal or do you think somehow we will adapt well that now now we're talking it's it's
like 38 no no no you mentioned the word education yes that's where we should concentrate because I think it's quite obious today that the educational system that is still uh uh dominating this um uh this area um of knowledge uh uh it's it's inadequate uh when you look at the classroom it hasn't changed since the University of bolog in in 1 14th century so we still have the same the same um uh School infrastructure or college
infrastructure that um normally has it's like a one-way Street the information always comes from the teacher to the class uh while this new generation is operating uh in two ways it's it's in it's it's always interactive exchange
and the biggest problem and I've been talking about for for quite a while that um uh we're still teaching very specific knowledge in the schools and instead of teaching what we have to teach how because because this knowledge may be
redundant 10 years from now we are preparing kids for for the world that will change dramatically by way we already know it will look different so what's the point of trying to teach kids at age 10 11 12 uh um without recognizing the fact that when they uh when they finish college uh when they they will be they'll become adults looking for jobs the job market will be tot different and most don't even finish
college right maybe maybe they don't finish college but but now we have to start thinking already uh uh not even thinking but even implementing uh new techniques to teach them how to teach them certain Basics certain um skills that that that will will be required in the world that we'll know will be quite different and the the the new jobs will require definitely the knowledge of computers uh and and the certain certain traditional skills that
that that that have been uh um have been um on demand for generations simply will will vanish but won't AI Just Adjust much more quickly so AI progress and chess exceeded your expectations the expectations of David Levy many other people it seems our system of education at K through 12 the high school graduation rate has been almost stuck since the late 1960s college graduation rate you know maybe is approaching 40%
it could take 30 40 years to turn that around even if we started doing everything right now so are in a sense some people still left in the Dust by these differential rates of change I mean should we be so optimistic uh yes and no
uh we tend to forget that um that every uh dramatic change in in human history uh caused also major problems M whether we like or not but the um the most dramatic technological Advance happened at the time of War where people
thought only about winning and having the best and and they didn't think about um uh sacrifices uh or about Comfort I hope we can avoid uh uh rep repetition of this of the cycle but naturally we can expect um substantial problems
for for many people who will have difficulty of adjusting to to new realities so what we can do just let's be objective let's talk about it and uh and let's not terrorize them by by the images of uh of the Hollywood movies
like uh the Terminator or the Matrix um it's a challenge that that that is ahead of us but it's not it's not the end of the world um there will be downsides but there will be upsides and uh let's see how we can we can we can manage our Mo our um uh our move into the future uh because what is the alternative uh uh we don't get to choose when and where technological progress stops it's happening so what I believe is is is is
the right approach is to understand that while machines can do eventually better everything that we know how do but there's still so many new things that only we can reveal um I'm always calling for um uh us um looking for New Frontiers uh there's no there's no need to slow down it's we just we just have to speed up and there's so many new challenges in in in in in it's it's up in the space down in the oceans so many things that
we're not doing now because they're too risky and we we we we like our comfortable life now I guess artificial intelligence though I'm not I'm not as optimistic about the development I'm I don't think it's it's going to happen
overnight it's it's happening but it's it's not it's not a speed that is that is threatening uh um uh uh um threatening us um as as predicted by the doomsayers um but that will be that will be give us a push towards more risky
adventures and and forcing us to uh take the the tasks that now we are rejecting because they are they're offering questionable returns with obvious risks you've been a Pioneer in what's sometimes called Advanced chess freestyle chess or centor chess where you pair a human being with a computer or a set of programs today 2017 do you still think it's the case that a human paired with the set of programs is better than playing against just the
single strongest computer program in chess oh there's no doubt about it uh but the human will make some mistakes so the human will ask stockfish KOMO Ripa what's the best move collate the different outputs make some kind of judgment explore some lines more deeply put that against ribka cluster is ribka cluster really going to lose many games I think so again it depends on the qualification of the operator sure but
the best operator in the world whoever that may be maybe yourself maybe Anson Williams I I'm not by by the way I exclude myself from this category because I'm not a very good operator I'm I'm I'm very good chess player but uh a great operator does not have to be necessarily a very strong player what makes for a great operator um someone who can um who can um work out uh sort of the most effective combination uh bringing
together human and machine skills uh I reach formulation that uh a weak human player plus machine plus a better process is superior not only to a very powerful machine but most most remarkably to a strong human player plus
machine plus an inferior process at the end of the day it's about interface um creating in an interface that will help us to coach machine towards more useful intelligence will be the right step forward and I I'm I'm a great believer
that if we put if we um uh put together um uh a good operator still it's a decent chess player not necessarily very strong chess player uh running U two three machines and finding the best way to to to get to get this knowledge uh um to translate this knowledge into into the into the um Quality moves um against rip cluster I would I would probably bet on on on on on a human plus machine a few questions about another one of your
interests Russia formerly the the Soviet Union if we look back on centuries of Russian history do you think there's something in Russian geography or or or demographics or geopolitics what has it been that has led to such unfree
outcomes fairly systematically where do you find the roots of tyranny in the history of Russia is it like a mix of the size of the country its openness to Invasion its vulnerability something about being next to Dynamic Europe on the other side
China or what is it look it's a it's a long if not a endless theor theoretical debate uh based on our interpretation of um certain historical events um I'm not convinced um where this was this arguments about some Nations being uh predetermined in their development and and uh ailen to the concept of democracy and the rule of law um and it's the reason I'm I'm quite comfortable with with with the with with this denial uh
that we can move from Theory to practice and while we can talk about uh um history and and certain influence of uh historical events on on on in in in to modernity but we can look at the places like Korea Korean peninsul right uh the same Nation not even cousins but brothers and sisters divided in 1950 so that's by historical standards yesterday and we could see the difference so one country is the uh is the uh demonstration of uh of the worst uh
uh orals nightmare uh it's a it's a it's gulak run by by paranoid dictator the family of dictators uh was three generations and on other side the very same Nation built one of the most sophisticated um market economies and and a very uh resilient democracy democracy that people in Europe can Envy uh just recently they had a president impeached MH and tried and the the CEO of the biggest corporation also being charged with with with um with crimes
the two most important people in the country exactly so that's and the same nation and then obviously we can talk about two germanies uh but I would rather look now to um China and Taiwan again the same people and we could see the difference obviously China is is is growing but comparing to dynamism and and and and and and um political stability of Taiwan it's and and Taiwan is just it's a small rocky island with 20 plus million people
versus uh 1 Point whatever billion Chinese uh uh in Continental China uh and we could see that Taiwan is far more advanced more Dynamic I I and this separation happened at the same time now we can even look because I you just mentioned this Asia and and Russia Asia and Europe we can even look at former Soviet Union and and and um try to analyze uh from our knowledge of 2017 what's happened after collapse of
the Soviet Union and why certain um uh um uh some Nations that are close to each other now moved in opposite directions let's look at Russia and Ukraine and let's look not at the whole Ukraine but just at Eastern Ukraine eastern Ukraine is um uh populated by mostly by ethnic Russians uh in the former Soviet Union the borders between republics they were very nominal so people could move around it's it was not a big deal even after the collapse of
the Soviet Union the official state border between Russia and Ukraine was was respected but people still could move around and they didn't need the special Visas so when we look at ethnic Russians born and raised in uh ksk and belgrad on Russian side and across the border saying harkov and netos on Ukrainian side they were people that could be hardly separated anything they read the same newspaper PR watched the same
television spoke the very same language not even accents uh but somehow in 2014 after Putin's in annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine we saw a huge difference um most of ethnic Russians in Ukraine signed for
Ukrainian army fighting against Putin's Invasion uh against the same Russians that that that came from other side again again it could be a long debate but I would say that one of the main reasons is that Ukraine experienced in
1994 a gradual transition of power from one president to another uh after seating president Leon uh uh Le cuk lost elections and walked away so ukrainians somehow got an idea that power is not sacred and the government can come and go and they can remove it by voting and if even despite the fact that Ukraine never experienced higher living standards than Russia um people realize that keeping this this Freedom keeping this ability
to influence their bureaucrats and and government through peaceful process of voting uh and and if necessary striking uh far more effective than uh uh Russia's quotequote stability were the same leader could be in charge of the
country with his corrupt click for for a long long time how vulnerable is Putin right now and to the extent he is is there a path toward democracy at the end of that process I don't know what there's a path to democracy so what I
know is that it's the regimes like putins they most um uh aggressive and most dangerous because it's not even Soviet Union or modern China where you had as in the USSR or we have today as in China a polit bureau uh Central Committee of the Communist party so a group of people very powerful people calling all the shots Putin's Russia is a oneman dictatorship and dictator doesn't care about the future of the country or about transition of
power there's nothing of interest for him if he's gone because normally it's not a retirement it's uh he loses power he loses everything including very often his own life um so he will be he will be desperate in in in protecting this power and and throwing all resources at in his disposal to stay on the top uh so that's why he he he is less sensitive uh uh for new Wars and uh new uh very aggressive moves International moves um because his
power is not limited every group of people even the worst of people the mafa family they they they they always come to more balanced decisions because there's always there always a search for some kind of compromise as in Iran yes
exactly they they they have to they have to look for for for compromise uh because they they know that they're all part of the same system and if the system goes down they all you know could lose everything Putin doesn't have to
doesn't have to uh to to listen to to okay he may listen but he doesn't have to listen to these advices and he's his power is not limited by by this um uh by other Elite groups uh all he has to do and he proved to be a very capable dictator uh to make sure that these groups are fighting each other and he could be kind of a kind of a judge on top of that it's I also call it a spine uh of the system which means that if he
goes down you don't expect just a simple transition of power will it be a democracy the answer is no it's not going to be Democratic next day but I'm strongly um uh uh resisting the the uh the idea popular idea in in Russia and now in the Free World as well that Putin's collapse could lead to um to uh to even something even worse uh they say open fascist dictatorship as if today in Russia we don't have a fascist dictatorship
um no one or no other group that will replace Putin in power will have the same the same ability to cause damage inside the country and out of the country and most likely these groups will try to to communicate with the West uh to to find some kind of an understanding and to to reduce the reduce the tension so while I don't expect an immediate uh uh Democratic reconstruction in Russia after Putin's collapse I think that um
Putin's fall Putin's demise will serve Russia well as well and also will help to um reduce the pressure with with our neighbors what if the provisional government of kensky had made peace with the Germans in World War I before Lenin re-enters the country could you imagine a path for Russia where it today would be more or less like a normal European country oh I think that if we try to make some projections into the future
are you you can hardly imagine Russia surviving as a state in its current borders though I'm I'm not sure it's it's it's feasible at all with all the pressure from China and radical Islam from from the East and from the South
but for Russia to find its spot in the family of civilized nations in 21st century it has no other choice but to work with Europe and the United States um and um also uh going back to this Russian Ukrainian conflict uh and now
open War um in eastern Ukraine um we can revisit uh early early days of Russian history going back nearly thousand years and uh to remind people that there was another Russia actually the cred of Russian civilization was was Kei Russia
and the trade republics in the um Northwest of Russia like Noam scov that were in those um uh entities were fully integrated in into into European political and and and and trade uh um space and uh maybe what is happening now
in Ukraine and what will happen eventually in Russia it will be the final showdown between K Russia and the pro- European Russia and the dominant tradition uh that was inherited by Moscow from the golden hord and bantian Empire uh and Russia will will re re re invent itself and will go back to its original Roots now we have a segment in all of these podcasts called underrated or overrated and I name something and you give me your sense of
how important it is to you or if it's underrated or overrated and I'll start with the bulgakov novel Master and Margarita overrated or underrated it's hard to say uh because it's my it was my favorite book it's still my favorite then it's underrated right uh yeah okay why is the novel important to you it's hard to explain for people who did not grow up in the Soviet Union because it has so many uh unique aspects that
that that were close to the hearts of people who experienced communism and and the life under um uh these dording laws uh but it's it's a unique combination of uh revisiting history and going back to the to the days of Jesus and uh uh telling us in a very origional form uh the classical um uh biblical story and projecting it to to the life in Moscow in in the 30s and for of those us who read it in the 70s and 80s we still could actually feel
that it's it was because it was about human nature it was just it's the uh it it reminded us that human nature doesn't change with all the progress people still have the same vulnerabilities the same weaknesses the same Temptations um and um and this this this connection of of of of times from the from the ancient days to to to Modern days um for me it still you know stands and what from American fiction has almost the same power for you faler
Melville Mark Twain oh you've become an American if we talk about talk about the nature human nature uh all Kings man mhm yeah Rob P yeah so the uh uh ID of March mhm yes uh TR Wilder again that's just I'm always looking for very yeah this the books that just you know they they are about something else about days that that were this in distant past but again this there something that is so um this is so close
because it's we're humans and uh certain you know images from these books you know we could see in today's political Arena the films of Andre turovsky overrated or underrated stalker yes uh it's the it's it's a mixture this is that's the it's and I also don't like when I say films so is the uh um overall uh I I um I'm not the biggest fan so I picked up one or two movies but as I mentioned stalker but otherwise I'm not
uh I'm not the the greatest fan the chess opening the king's Gambit 2 F4 underrated or overrated um it's it's a great piece of history but it has no relevance uh today so that's why again uh uh it doesn't it doesn't pass my test
of connecting the past and and and and the present and the future uh there's certain things that stay in the past because they there were great bombers uh in in in in in the game of chess uh these gambits helped to create uh um
beautiful beautiful games that was we can still enjoy but but spasy beat Fisher with it once that was a long time ago you don't think that could happen having having total lost position after move 15 so let's the with databases you
think no way ever again no but it's just it's the it's this open I looked at these openings and I just came to the conclusion that uh they just simply don't stand modern technique of Defense uh and and and Counterattack it's um
it's just they're not visible if you are looking for for good game professional game they're not visible H by the way I was the one who who reinvented and brought back the scotch uh the Evans Gambit but I just have to realize that okay I don't play anymore but but this the the way the the chess has developed made most of these openings not all of them but mainly gambits simply um not not feasible weapons at the at the top
level if you took a top 10 player from the 70s someone like Timon or wolf Anderson a very good player are you sure timman is top player of the 70s no top 10 player at times I don't think he was top 10 in the 70s so okay it's just he was someone who was in the candidate match never champion and you give them a 2017 openings database that they can use and no one else ever has access to how much stronger a player do they become
it could be quite a significant progress 100 rating points 200 rating points I don't know [Music] but uh it will definitely um add probably 100 rating points so it's uh it's uh the the reason I'm I'm thinking about about your question and I have some difficulty answering this question is that for how long will it stay you know secret because people will start it's it's the the moment people see new ideas they will they will they will
start moving into this territory so you can hardly imagine that you can sit on this database for too long uh and others uh um others just falling victims of your of your um this deep knowledge uh but it will it will be quite a
significant Improvement look in the match if you're talking about the database given to to to to a world championship um um one of the participants of the match say K carpov right that could that could be it would decide the that could
be the size of factor yes tall story overrated or [Music] underrated do I have the um the uh sort of again uh very uneven so there certain certain um uh novels are just you know this the short fiction right mad is phenomenal there many of them phenomenal the problem was this that this this sometimes there's so much philosophy like in in in a in in a war on peace that is just I think it's it's outdated outdated like the Kings Gambit
I would I would uh so dooi underrated that's the because it's all about human nature that's that doesn't matter whether you live in in Russia in in the uh second quarter of the uh the the uh the third quarter of um the 19th century or in the first quarter of the 21st century is is the the human emotions the human um Temptations the human reactions they are still very much the same back to chess now we both know Ken rogov highly
successful as an economist and a very good chess player if we take most top chess players at the very to and somehow they could not have played chess in other endeavors how successful do you think they would have been no idea no idea no no idea but they're smart but let's you know how specializ but you talk you talk to the very general audience when you say a very good chest player you have to expl top five you no no no but Ken rogov that I
mean not top five right no no no no no but he was a very strong grandmother this is the man who played professional chess because the moment you say very good chess player some people think oh maybe a good club player very good by your standards right no no he was he was a very good he was very good by any standard so that's the and that's makes him unique so it's whether he was top top 100 or not but somewhere there in in
the world uh at his pick in mid-70s um uh I don't think that the aptitude of playing chess is anything but aptitude for playing chess so it's there's no Universal rule some people could move to to other areas I was I was very very uh
um uh lucky that I could know I I I I I grew up with my mother who helped me to to sort of get education outside of Chess and I uh I always had a very various interests um and uh um looked for for um life its entirety and that's
why after I stopped playing professionally in 2005 that already was was a help of my wife so I could move from chess to other areas and I have a very full life sure without playing without playing CH professionally but that's again that's not the rule that's not that's not happening with other players uh though some of them I'm sure could do extremely well by the way some of them were very good business people
some of them made good Investments if you look at some of the Brit British Grand Masters or other other you know players uh in Europe um no rule but um I think that's the um the uh chess helps to some of them um to have so very um to find the right approach to to their new Endeavor it's not it may not be specific for instance I I'm I'm more of humanitarian so I prefer History Literature I I'm I guess I'm a good speaker but I'm not as good
in number crunching so it's very important to understand what you good at that's that's what just helps you so to recognize uh what is your strengths and also to be very open about your own weaknesses perhaps you may recall your 1999 game against topalov right so a key moment in that game you play Rook takes D4 now when you played Rook takes D4 and made that sacrifice did you see at the time the later brilliant moves coming up
uh your C3 your Bishop F1 your R7 or did you just feel there's going to be something that comes up how much was it one or the other not sure exactly at what point I saw the final combination but uh but uh first of all after playing
Rook T Z4 I mean I knew I was you know it's if he took if he would have taken the Rook which was a mistake right he should have played King B6 exactly but St and he got very good position but I knew that is it already good good for me
uh though I was not sure about the about the outcome um immediately but within move War Two actually I saw the whole line and it's the I was was quite lucky but at the same time you know it prevented me from finding the forced win in the middle of the combination because at one point I made uh um second rate move yes just because I already saw the whole line and it was so aesthetically it was so e and and I didn't just it's and I just looked
for obvious moves for Black by the way both me and tralo missed a much better defense for black that could prevent it this this this combination though of course the end game would you mean 30 you Rook H to E8 the black old with that just yeah uh I think the end game is still uh it's it's much better for white though it's not winning so the the the move um uh pointed by caval Rook A7 immediately so at uh would be would be
would be winning by force so it would be it would be mate uh a maing net that black couldn't uh couldn't es from where black king couldn't escape um but because I saw this it's all way up to the Rook D7 so I just I just I and you look at you look at at at the time I spent I played almost almost Blitz because I I was so so um anxious to to reach the position and and to demonstrate how far I could see and and also I was amazed by the by the beauty
of the of this of this geometry so I didn't prepare you for this question you simply remember correct uh the game against toala I I don't know look I didn't come to you before this session and tell you to go back and look at the game you simply remember I have to confess I have to confess that you know I I don't remember the exact number of the moves uh I can I can reconstr the game of course Recon the game but I'm not when he said Rook
h8 I I was actually to Fig play Queen C4 of course exactly then then it would end up with the end game when I I I would be um I would be changed down but I had rook and Bishop and and and and several pawns for his two Rooks and uh and it's if I remember correctly it's probably it's winning but it's not forced would a top chess engine have played Rook takes D4 today I didn't check uh um it depends on the evolation of
King B6 because they will they will they will see immediately even without calculating the whole combination they will see immediately that white could force a draw and by the way that's what topalo thought that I wanted to make a
draw right white could force a draw while after King B6 every engine shows immediately that black is better I mean slightly better but the evaluation is it's clearly in in Black's favor so that's why they wouldn't take the Rook
now I don't remember whether Rook takes the I think at that time White had no Cho choice but to take on D4 because otherwise you know the whole then black is much more space yeah exactly exactly now given this does this mean uh even
very very good chess engines will never play games as beautiful as human beings because you were so excited by this combination in some ways it may have led you down inexact paths but it nonetheless LED you down those path and
we we got the beautiful game that we did no but now now is just you moved back to this this chess chess computers and um and there's certain things that people should realize because it's uh I I hate you know talking about these things it's who say rash is using a bird language because it's the you asking me questions and I'm not sure that 99% of our listeners they understand exactly what we're what we're talking about now
there's one thing is that for people to understand is that chess is you may call mathematical infinite game so the number of legal moves is what 200 it's more than number of atoms in in the solar system uh so machines cannot solve the game you can you cannot expect machine to play e24 at move one and announcing m in 16455 moves but machines could work uh uh the game of chess from from the from the end so now we all we know that
machines solved mathematically solved all positions with four pieces like king and queen versus King and Rook all position I was five pieces all positions was six pieces and now um seven pieces seven pieces it's the it's it's it's on the way I don't it's I'm not sure it's all solved but it's that's it's it's it's uh we're talking about um 100 terabytes yes now o obviously eight pieces will be already just insane number and and the
game of chess is Ultimate end game with 32 pieces so that's why it's maybe machines will get to eight or nine moves but that's will prove the end even for the immense computing power that you can expect uh in in next 5 10 20 years will AI write beautiful music or is there something but but I I want to finish this because what this is because what we discovered in this process I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't um uh uh overweight
uh uh our listeners with all these these details I don't want just to to to to um throw throw on them this the the massive information it's amazing what people will enjoy though be surprised but um in some of these positions like um uh
there are certain uh seven pieces positions yes uh when the win and we're talking about the forced win uh can be reached within 500 moves yes now 500 moves I remember I looked at some of the positions even at six pieces position
it's not intell no no this there's no there no intelligence at all it's just you know pieces moving around you know this I saw the position with you know with King to Rooks and Knight on one side and King two Rooks and and on other side and uh uh it said made in 490 moves first made yes now I can tell you that's even being a very decent player for the first 400 moves I could hardly understand why these pieces moved around like a dance
it's endless dance around the board you don't see any any pattern trust me no pattern because they move from one side to another and at certain points I saw oh but white even you know white position even deteriorated it was better 50 moves uh before now the question is and this is a big question so if there are certain positions in this end games like 7% games that take by the best play of both sides 500 moves to win the
game what does it tell us about the quality of the game that we play which is an average 50 moves it means clueless in the entire universe exactly so that's it's it's an interesting philosophical question and I have to confess I don't know the answer imagine how bad our politics would look I don't know now this that that brings us to another point so maybe with with machines we can actually move move our knowledge much further and we can
understand you know how to play decent games uh uh uh at at much greater lengths now going back to computer chess and I don't know how much time you spend looking at the computer matches mhm quite a bit quite a bit now I think you
can confirm my observations that uh this there's something strange in these games first of all they they're longer of course that's they're much longer because machines don't make the same mistake so they could play 780 moves 100
moves so 780 moves is is a normal length right still by the way it's still 780 moves it's still not F it's it's it's way way below what we expect from perfect chess yes that's the that tells us that b not perfect but most uh uh most of these games are decided by one of the machines suddenly can I call it losing patience mhm because you have a position that is roughly even it's Maneuvers and they go around the pieces
from one side to another and then suddenly one machine makes a you may call human mistake suddenly it loses patience and it tries to to to to to break up without without uh without uh a good reason behind it my
driverless car will do this someday but that's the no that's that also tells us that these the the machines they that's interesting observation from also my experience that machines also have you make all psychology um the pattern in decision
making and if we understand this pattern so we can make certain predictions so it's not it's not all predeter there's so many things that can go one way or another and that means that we will you we will not be run by this mystical AI that it's it's not perfect it's far from perfect it's still it's there's so many IRAs it doesn't know how to cover um even setting aside a simple question whether the brains can
function effectively separately from the body so it's that's what does it mean that you have brains that are not part of the of the moving of the of our of our moving body so can you separate it and still have the same effect it's my answer is I don't know and that's that's what I believe is good because that tells us that there's so much to learn in this process and and and for those who are U who are predicting that uh AI is just around the
corner and is going to wipe us out they don't know what they're talking about so it's more like a future of inscrutability and periodic surprises yeah but it's the know but we also know that the Doom saying has been always very popular Pastime when it comes to technology it's a because it's easy you know it's it's us against them The Race Against the Machines the war against the machines you can sell it and and I think
it's it's important that people will stop looking at this either from utopian point of view oh we'll just you know get together we'll fly to Alpha santav with bashin you know they will serve us you know in this endless uh space flight or
to the contrary it's a Skynet that is going to kill all of us it's a process it's a process and we should be objective this is not too optimistic not dark pessimism but something that is more human which is look let's get
objective let's assess our chances and let's realize this is a process of of uh um of developing further human civilization and compared compared to the fears that people had about machines in 90s and 20th Century why not Pine years do we do our best thinking Under Pressure yes we do much better I'm also best but we definitely perform much much better some people collapse but as as a aronian I know you can't say that as a
Humanity yes as a Humanity of course we we we we uh uh operate much more effectively Under Pressure look at Wars a lot of mistakes though are made in Wars no but exactly but but this is mistakes always made but it's it's we're
talking about the performance that's why we can look at the productivity look at at at what people can do uh you know by by inventing new things so this is the moment Under Pressure you can expect that part of of of of the group uh uh
will will uh perform way above expectations last question what has been your favorite City to play chess in and why now it's simple because I don't play as anywhere anywhere else but in St Louis Missouri so that's the back is it
Moscow is it Laris is it some City played more more chess in Laris than anywhere else in the world I guess and you've done very well there yeah I did well not now in terms of uh perfect results I would say Paris I played um a
few events but most remarkably uh five uh rapid chess tournaments and the city never and I won four of them and I was in the final in all five so that's the in terms of again rating my performance I don't think anywh any City will come close to Paris and the City of Paris never distracts you when you're there if it's you're there to play chess you play chess no look look Paris is always Paris but again the results were perfect
nearly perfect so and uh um I'm I'm not thinking about other places no but I don't think that's is there a home disadvantage so an on playing in chenai his all entourage is there he's a big hero in India his family is around he has to jugle competing demand he lost he lost to Magnus and such as well so there that's the um so no home court disadvantage in chess um it could be Advantage could be disadvantage because you know it's uh
it's a pressure you play at home anyway I never I never played at home because my home was except okay 19 1980 I played in Baku it was a tournament when I made my second GM Grand Master Norm okay but that was not such a big challenge of course people wanted me to win but I was much stronger than the rest of the field it was all about me competing with baski for the first prize everyone knew I would be a grandmas there H big
matches when I played Moscow or with carpov or just other events it was not considered to be home so it's the uh though I was not very successful in Moscow when you look at at at at overall performance um uh if you play at home and just think about an A and and Magnus or you're guest so it's it's a pressure on both players it's just an extra pressure and it depends who can handle it better but since Magnus beat on Bo in Chennai and
in SOI next year I don't think that the factor of the home Factor uh or guest Factor play the m oh and one final question I forgot who is the most likely Challenger to Magnus Carlson this next time around considering the the logic of of
the world championship history uh Magnus should face opposition from a young player or the same age so um I would say there are three players that I guess could challenge him uh uh Maxim MRA would rate him as the least probable
among the three second Carana MH and the most likely Wesley saw the reason I put Wesley ahead of two others is that he has a phenomenal he has phenomenal concentration absolutely phenomenal it's just and it's very important these days concentration trumps everything uh it's it uh I would put it on top of other things though he's a very very good player and um I think that he might be among these three might be the most
dangerous for magnos because he has nothing left nothing to lose he feels he's early no it's just it's because because his concentration um uh could um uh overboard Magnus Magnus Magnus concentration is was all his strengths he's he's very he was always very concentrated he could U mobilize his is his all his resources for the game now we saw Magnus could feel again those it's my educated guess so hasn't even qualified for the candidates it still
has to win it but against the vesle so Magnus could have some serious problems in in in uh reading his opponent and and also just messing up his energy uh so could reflect um though I think it's match with cor could be also uncertain and if if VRA makes some improvements more psychological improvements he could be also dangerous it's he's the same age Karana is younger so is even even even younger than karwana so I would I would
bet on these three as as as as um um one of the magnet Challenger uh ranking them in in the following quarter so Carana andv Gary thank you for the chat it's been a pleasure thank you thanks for listening to conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes Stitcher or your favorite podcast app and if you like this podcast please consider rating it on iTunes and leaving a review this helps other people find the [Music] show