ABSTRACT
In 1997 Garry Kasparov squared off against International Business Machine’s preeminent chess-playing program, Deep Blue, for a widely publicized rematch of a contest between them the previous year. Kasparov was the reigning world chess champion and regarded by many as the best player in history, but a loss to Deep Blue in the first game of the previous tournament had shattered chess’s mystique among enthusiasts. Despite this false start, Kasparov ultimately rallied to win the six-game match 4–2 and pocket the $400,000 prize (Newborn, 2003). Now media outlets worldwide would follow the progress of the week-long rematch with banner headlines that alternately hailed and bemoaned the advent of human-kind’s new computer overlords. Kasparov himself had much at stake: More important than the prize money was his reputation. As he put it, “I don’t think it is an appropriate thing to discuss the situation if I lose. I never lose. I have never lost in my life,” and later continued, “[I am] defending the integrity of my title, which will now mean not that I am just superior to other human beings, but superior on the planet.” Or as one chronicler summarized the situation, “The World Champion had been wounded. He didn’t just want to beat the machine, he wanted to send it to the scrap yard” (King, 1997, pp. 5–6, 46, 50).
