Skip to content

Centaurs circling my mind

  • by

In among the mental churn is something Kevin Kelly wrote about in one of his books a few years ago.

He wrote about Garry Kasparov and the Deep Blue computer battling it out for supremacy in the chess world. Deep Blue finally won over Kasparov making it the first time a computer had beaten a human chess master.

He went on to write about the way chess masters train, but also how it is changing. Deep Blue held data on millions of moves made during chess tournaments. It could sort through al this data and find the best move to make at any given time. Kasparov has said that if he had all that data he’d be able to have beaten Deep Blue.

Chess players are now working on training along with AI systems. The AI can sort through its data, and offer the three best next moves during each move of the game. The human player then chooses among those options according to their own strategies and goals during the game. Kelly has said that most of the top players now are ones who have trained using an AI.

He calls them ‘centaurs’, after the mythical half man / half horse creature. They aren’t completely human, or completely AI, but a team of both working and excelling together.

He explains it in this video:

This idea has grabbed hold of my brain and isn’t letting go. I want to do something with the idea. I’m not sure what exactly just yet. But something.

If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *