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As a reminder to the readers and listeners, the format of the show is this: On the radio they play a quick rapid game during which Lawson interviews his guest on both chess and other matters. In the first season only one of the personalities was actually a chess player, Hou Yifan, while the others were all noted figures in their fields and all are chess aficionados. The shows are edited, and also bring in GM Daniel King to the commentary booth as he provides a little insight on the flow of the game and his feel for the position.
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Murray Campbell
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October 28 - 12:04 PM
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Murray Campbell was the brains behind the chess computer Deep Blue, which made headlines around the world after it defeated Garry Kasparov. |
Murray Campbell is one of the giants behind computer chess at the highest level, having made contributions to HiTech, Deep Thought and of course both iterations of Deep Blue. He shared the $100,000 Fredkin Prize with Feng-hsiung Hsu and A. Joseph Hoane Jr. in 1997, a prize that was to be awarded for developing the first computer to defeat a reigning world chess champion in a match.
Dominic Lawson - After the match, he (Kasparov) accused your team of cheating, by giving suggestions to your program during the match. What did you think of that?
Murray Campbell - We were surprised that he would make such a claim. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think if you asked him today 'Can computers play the kinds of sophisticated moves that he thought were not possible in 1997?' I think that he would agree computers are in fact capable of playing these kinds of moves.
A picture of the same computer as Deep Blue, taken at the Computer
History Museum (source Wikipedia)
And you don't see, do you, in your lifetime computers actually solving chess? That is maybe to find the perfect moves from start to finish, in a sense making the whole thing of mere academic interest thereafter.
I think solving chess while theoretically possible, so for example the game of checkers has been solved completely, chess is vastly more complex than checkers and I don't see an obvious way to do that. Even with improving technology, I don't see that happening. Certain small parts of the game can be solved exactly with just a few pieces on the board, but the game of chess being solved, I don't see how that's going to happen. It would require some major breakthroughs in computing technology in order to do that.
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To listen to the full broadcast, visit the BBC Radio 4 website where all episodes are archived.
