Chess Life - março de 1980 - interessante para ler e opinar

The debate between Harold B. Dondis and David Levy in the September Chess Life & Review [" Does the -computer violate the laws of chess'?") is of interest not for what they debated but for what they left o,ut: the real issue. The real issue is that the continued development of computer chess , is liable to seriously diminish or destroy the game. It will destroy both its prestige, with consequent loss of public interest and investment, as well as appreciation of its beauty, its unique melding of human logic, creativity, esthetics and competitive spirit. Dondis may well write, as he does, "... the computer can always'be barred later, after its pre: dominance becomes clear." By then, it will be too late. By then, chess will no longer be chess. It will be glorified tic-tac-toe. One must agree with Levy—the program that defeats Karpov will use advanced and subtle strategy to decrease the number of possible positions that must be analyzed. Since there is no reason, in principle, why such a program could not be developed, we can be confident that it will come into being sooner or later. What will be the consequences of this unbeatable chess computer'? For the chessplayer, serious or professional, there will be no more original opening theory, nor indeed original chess theory at all. Specifically, there will be no innovation, no trends, no philosophizing, no surprises. All will be known. Chess will be left with the intellectual appeal of Newton's two-body problem. The computer may well produce games of eerie beauty, stunning moves; but it will all be dead. Chess is appealing to chessplayers and the public because, when played beautifully, it is a human achievement—Chernev might even say, an art form. If a computer, and not Rubinstein, had printed out QB1 in the famous Rubinstein-Capablanca encounter of some SO years ago, who would care? Essential to the beauty of that move was the fact that Rubinstein thought of it Iinsis.t that Q-B1, made by Rubinstein, is beautiful; made by a computer, is dead. This is not a matter for debate; it simply acknowledges psychological reality.