RE: Cognution [was Re: Deep Blue - white paper]

Cameron Reilly (cameron@reilly.net)
Sat, 4 Sep 1999 23:36:33 +1000

Spike wrote:
Now chess players have come to realize that their brains are running an algorithm of some kind; perhaps not well understood, but still an algorithm. Today chess players in general will tend to be very comfortable with the notion that computers will eventually [probably soon] be able to do things that we think of as exclusively human, such as driving cars, recognizing a face in a crowd, developing software, writing poetry and music, and even playing chess *and enjoying it*.

It was precisely this point that made me ask the original question regarding Deep Blue. 20 years ago, a lot of people (including it appears, some in the AI community) thought that playing chess at grandmaster level was something that required a 'higher level of thinking', something more than could be achieved through brute force. Deep Blue resolved that question. Today many people suggest that computers can never achieve "consciousness" or
"sentience". Perhaps in another 20 years we will know the answer to that
question.

Cameron