The Reunion

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The Reunion: Deep Blue v Kasparov

Deep Blue v Kasparov

BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion, Deep Blue v Kasparov

Kirsty Wark reunites the computer scientists who challenged the world’s greatest player.

Kirsty Wark reunites chess masters and computer scientists who tested the limits of human and artificial intelligence by taking on the world’s greatest chess player.

The challenge to create a computer that could play chess and beat champions had tantalised computer scientists for nearly 50 years. By the end of the 20th century, that dream was feverishly close.

The Soviet Union had dominated chess throughout the cold war, powered by a desire to prove intellectual superiority over the west. Meanwhile, American scientists had made huge advances in artificial intelligence. 

But as the Soviet Union collapsed, allegiances and obligations changed in unexpected ways. It was at this time of flux that IBM proposed a six-game match between their new supercomputer, Deep Blue, and the world’s greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov. In New York City, May 1997, this astonishing series of chess games was held in a hushed room while a packed audience watched it broadcast on large screens a few floors below. Every move was streamed online, threatening to crash a fledgling internet.

Over the tense nine days, the mood turned from anticipation to suspicion to bewilderment. Not only would the world of chess never be the same again, but the balance of power between humans and computers seemed to have shifted irrevocably. Was it the dawning of a new age?

Kirsty Wark reunites the chess masters and AI pioneers who went into battle to test the limits of human and artificial intelligence - Frederic Friedel, advisor to Garry Kasparov; Malcolm Pein, Kasparov team member and IBM consultant; Murray Campbell, co-creator of Deep Blue; Joel Benjamin, IBM’s official grandmaster consultant; Maurice Ashley, Grandmaster, author and commentator, who covered the big match; and Steven Levy, Editor at Large at Wired Magazine, who scooped the front cover for Newsweek.

Producer: Ruth Abrahams
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

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