Deep Blue Scientists Try Human Touch to Checkmate Kasparov

The massive calculating power of IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue has been imbued with a human touch for its next encounter with world champion Gary Kasparov, one of the most eagerly awaited rematches in history.

The computer won one game and drew two others against Kasparov in their 1996 match in Philadelphia. The Russian grandmaster eventually won the six-game contest.

A victory for Deep Blue in the $1.1-million rematch May 3-11 could be the major breakthrough IBM’s computer scientists have been laboring for years to achieve. “I think the major difference is that in the last match we brought a lot of technology and this time we’re going to bring a lot of human input,” computer scientist Hsu Feng-Hsiung told Reuters at IBM’s research center in New York.

The “human input” is the addition of grandmaster Joel Benjamin as a full-time advisor. Benjamin, who worked briefly on the 1996 match, has infused the system with more chess knowledge.