Deep Blue Revealed: The Journey to Pursue the Holy Grail of Artificial Intelligence

Author: Xu Fengxiang [USA]
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: On May 11, 1997, hundreds of millions of people around the world watched a stunning victory on television—a computer defeated Kasparov, who was defending his world champion title, shocking the international chess community. The author of this book, Xu Fengxiang, is the system designer of "Deep Blue." Avoiding complex technical terms, he introduces the story behind the two historic matches between "Deep Blue" and Kasparov in a non-technical, conversational tone, revealing how an inconspicuous student project was eventually transformed into a multimillion-dollar supercomputer: the formation of scientific creativity, overcoming numerous technical obstacles, the competition and fierce disputes during the development of the chess-playing machine, and ultimately defeating the world's greatest human chess player.
As early as 1949, there were scientific concepts about creating modern chess-playing machines, and developing a machine capable of defeating any human chess player was one of the oldest holy grails in the field of artificial intelligence. Xu Fengxiang began his quest for the holy grail in the mid-1980s while pursuing his graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University. It was only when he and his partners continued the project at IBM and developed "Deep Blue" that this exploration truly came to fruition.
Xu Fengxiang vividly describes the tense atmosphere of this battle between the mind and the machine—the "burning flame" in Kasparov's eyes. This book is not just another story about the clash between humans and machines. It also illustrates how gifted humans—humans as toolmakers—allow their thoughts to roam far and wide.