Author: Dave Gomboc
Date: 16:54:18 05/06/99
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On May 06, 1999 at 19:47:52, Dann Corbit wrote: >On May 05, 1999 at 15:43:23, Prakash Das wrote: >[snip] >> No one is casting aspersions (yet) on the respectable Ken Thompson. It's >>disingenuos to suggest that.. He may have arbitrated but what he was arbitrating >>exactly? The whole operation was financed, staged and managed single-handedly by >>IBM only, one arbiter is not enough. When DB was restarted after a crash, I >>doubt an arbiter handled himself (or oversaw) the whole startup process.. most >>likely he entrusted it to the ibm people. It's very easy to do foul things, IBM >>had a big stake. >> >> Did IBM in fact do that? We don't know for sure. They should be publishing the >>entire history of the games (every iota). But they won't do that - it was an >>exhibition designed for IBM's benefit. >> >> Is Deep Blue a weak computer then? Of course not, with it's special purpose >>hardware, it's quite a challenging thing. >Here's an interesting thought: >After any of the crashes and restarts (how many were there?), did Deep Blue >suddenly make an astounding strategic move that puzzled Kasparov, or were those >moves only during normal move exchange sequences? > >If the move suggested after a restart was pretty bland, then why should we >suspect anything at all? > >I think the challenges to the integrity of IBM are badly misplaced. The entire >Deep Blue experiment did more for chess and chess programming than anything >anyone else has done in recent history. Look, we're still talking about it >today, and it was two years ago, so it must have been pretty interesting. I will take issue with this statement. It probably did more for computer chess publicity than any other event, but in terms of programming, open-source Crafty wins in my books. >Anything they could possibly have gained by cheating would be outweighed a >billion times by the losses they would suffer if caught cheating. IBM is >conservative. There is no way I will ever believe they would do something like >that without real, concrete evidence. > >I don't claim to be impartial. I have genuine, deep-seated admiration for what >they did. I also think GK was a spoil-sport afterwards. So maybe I even have >an axe to grind. But even with a slanted view, I really, honestly can't imagine >some big evil plot behind it all. It's just too absurd. Dave
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