Author: Keith Ian Price
Date: 01:14:54 05/01/98
I just got back from a lecture on Deep Blue given at Oregon Graduate Institute by Feng Hsiung Hsu, and was able to ask him many questions after the presentation. Since a lot of unanswered questions have been debated on rgcc and CCC, I thought I would ask him about several of these subjects. It's late so I will mention a couple and add the rest tomorrow. 1. As to whether there will ever be a rematch or a match with someone else such as Vishy Anand or Karpov, Hsu stated that the chances are "slim to none". In his view the program is only marginally better than Kasparov at present, and in order to have a rematch, they would have to make it much better than Kasparov, so that they would be able to guarantee a win. He stated that no one on the team wanted to put that amount of effort into it, since the history-making goal had already been achieved. 2. The draw in Game two never showed up on DB's screen as a possibility. After the game, Hsu went to bed thinking that DB had played the most brilliant game ever played by a computer. When he woke up the next morning and checked the Internet, he saw "Kasparov misses draw in game 2." At first he thought, "they just won't believe that DB could win, and it's just sour grapes." But when he ran it on DB, Jr. for quite a while, the possibility showed up, but he still thought there was a way to avoid the perpetual, although to do it, would mean losing enough advantage to make it a draw anyway. He never ran the position on DB, since between-rounds maintenance was being done. 3. DB was dismantled right after the match because the SP2 processors used during the match were part of an order that was shipped right after the match. The SP2 was a brand new unit, and the upgrade orders had left none for DB's use, so the SP2s used in the match were from a lot donated by IBM to the NIH, and were shipped to them immediately following the match. The frames were kept for historical reasons. The Smithsonian has expressed interest in having Deep Blue on display some day, and that is where the frames may show up, with new SP2s installed. 4. There are no plans for a "commercial" version of Deep Blue from IBM, although Hsu is trying to get the rights to the chess processors. If he does, he may consider doing a commercially available product that would run on a PC and have a chess processor on a card to plug in. He considers it risky, though. I asked how much each unit would sell for if he were to sell 1 million. He said that with that amount of sales, he could sell the program and board for under $200. I also asked about if only 10,000 were sold. He said then it would be around $400. I told him I would buy 3 at that price, and that I suspect there are others who would also. The real problem is that he could not call it DB or even Baby Blue. IBM would not want to be associated with it if they gave him the rights. So a lot of quick advertising would not be available, which could generate the mass sales needed to get the under $200 price. Ok, it's late, and although I have a lot more, it will have to wait till tomorrow :-(. kp
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