What does Kasparov's defeat mean?

Machine has defeated man. That was the common reaction after chess maestro Garry Kasparov was defeated by a computer. Observer of social and cultural affairs, Mochtar Buchori, contemplates on the man and machine relationship.

JAKARTA (JP): The great news has finally come: Garry Kasparov, the world's greatest chess player, was defeated by supercomputer Deep Blue! A triumph of machine over humankind.

I feel sad. Maybe I have been too much influenced by Boris Khropov's view (Newsweek, May 12, 1997) that this particular match "distorts the very essence of this sport...let machines play against machines and people against people". Perhaps it is my very limited understanding of computer technology and its significance for human life which constitutes the main cause of this sad feeling.

I am completely ignorant about chess. But I admire people who can master this intricate art of anticipatory and multidimensional thinking. I am also quite ignorant about computer technology, but I am quite aware of the great changes it has brought into our lives. I have always tried to increase my computer literacy so that I am not entirely left out of this modern age.

Thus what makes me feel sad is not the technicalities of chess and computer, but the great problem of man creating machine designed to beat man. Isn't it a symptom of intellectual arrogance leading towards human self-destruction?

This was my first reaction to this big news. I realized it is an overly pessimistic view which can, if unbridled, take me to an antitechnology, antiscience, and antilogic stance.

This can happen to any person who, like myself, has been brought up primarily in the humanities culture. We are trained to value humanity and to guard the dignity of human existence. Even death and dying has become an important issue to some of us. Thus from this viewpoint, the idea of man being beaten by "man's creation" is very painful and worrisome.

Is there really any sign of such self-destructive tendencies in the Deep Blue supercomputer? According to IBM, the match was "part chess, part research project to help build computers that can make complex, simultaneous calculations for applications such as weather forecasting, air traffic control and molecular dynamics". As reported in Newsweek, IBM insists that "the Deep Blue effort is not so much an attempt to wrest a part of humanity away from our species, as it is a scientific experiment".

Campbell, one of the Deep Blue team members, said that the big objective behind the Deep Blue project is to create computers that can help us "solve problems better than we've ever solved problems before...the important thing is whether we can then also solve other problems that people can't solve -- problems that are really important". In other words, the big idea behind building this supercomputer is to enhance humankind's ability to solve problems, especially problems that are really important. In reading this, my skepticism prompts me to ask, "Who decides what those important problems are, and how they should be solved?"

If we can believe those sincere statements, we can then conclude that actually the problem here is not man against machine, but man collaborating with machine. What is being attempted is to put at the disposal of humankind a powerful machine that can serve humankind in its search for a nobler life -- a dignified life for everyone. If this is true, then this entire Deep Blue experiment must be looked upon as a noble experiment. It should not be forgotten that we are moving deeper and deeper into a cyborg culture of the industrialized world in which much of "humanity's intelligent work is performed, however uneasily, with our digital companions". Computers and people are thus destined to be "partners".

A healthy and optimistic view about the Deep Blue experiment was given by Dr. David Stork, author, physicist and psychology scholar. In his opinion Deep Blue is "nowhere close to recreating the essence of human intelligence, but its ability to recognize patterns illustrated how much (and how little) we know about the brain". He also said that whatever comes out of this Deep Blue match, "we [should] appreciate even more the kinds of things that humans do so well".

In spite of these reassuring views, there are still a few things that make me feel uneasy. Why does it have to be a match between man and machine that exhibits the great computing ability of the machine? Is there no better way, a more "humane way" of testing the ability of the computer? Is there any element of truth in Kasparov's allegation that Deep Blue was created with the sole purpose of defeating him? That it has nothing to do with scientific experimentation?

My feeling towards this whole match is really ambivalent. On one hand I feel amazed by man's ability to create a device that can imitate some human functions and that the machine functions better than the original human performance. But on the other hand I feel disturbed to see that humankind can be so humbled by a machine. Kasparov is the standard-bearer for humankind. His defeat to a powerful supercomputer means, among other things, that "problems that seem to belong to human intelligence are potential sitting ducks for massive computational power".

The ultimate question in this regard is how do we position ourselves in comparison with computers and other sophisticated man-made devices. Are we going to use our machines in such a way that we allow ourselves to be controlled by machines, or are we going to use our machines carefully and wisely that we will remain in control of the machines we create?

We all choose the latter. But to live true to this choice, we have to make our decisions in light of enlightened analyses and not be led by hyperboles.

According to Rodney W. Nichols, President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, such decisions will always blend science with values. This means that we must be able to "reconcile conclusions based on values with conflicting conclusions based on reason".

In the end, values and reason are not separate things. As Pascal once said, "The heart has its reason that reason knows nothing of." We are all invited to think about the roles of values, reason and science in the modern world.