"Watson Still Can't Think"

Hubert Dreyfus himself contributes to the discussion on Stanley Fish's blog at the New York Times. The philosopher who famously marked the limits of artificial intelligence forty years ago observes that computers still lag humans in understanding contexts.

And human beginners are capable of understanding the position below (recycled yet again!) far better than the best chess computer programs.

Here's another example from the 2006 World Computer Championship: check out Black's horrible 71st move, a move that no human master would ever allow.

Jeopardy, Fischer, anthropology, phone-a-friend

Random links....

Stanley Fish discusses Hubert Dreyfus's critique of AI.  And Kasparov opines...

White to play

Can you evaluate this position more accurately than Rybka?

If so, why?

Sevan Muradian told me that Robert R. Desjarlais's Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chessboard looks like interesting reading.

Garry Kasparov reviews Frank Brady's Endgame.  Mig discusses that review, too.


And guess who was on the Georgian version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?