Author: Ed Schröder
Date: 11:01:57 01/20/00
Go up one level in this thread
On January 20, 2000 at 13:07:03, Amir Ban wrote: >On January 20, 2000 at 08:34:21, Graham Laight wrote: > >>Suppose that IBM could not get DB to work, so they decided to put a humming >>black box in the Equitable building, and transmit the moves in from outside. The >>moves would have been chosen by a team of IMs working with other chess >>computers. >> >>Would the match referees have picked this up? >> >>As I understand it, there was only 1 referee, and he couldn't have been >>everywhere all the time. Was there even a referee in the IBM team room? >> >>Let me state for the record that I do not believe that, in reality, IBM cheated. >> >>-g >> > >Ken Thompson was the observer at this match. He never made any comment on this >that I was aware of, and I found that odd. So, a year ago, I wrote him and asked >what his view of this was, plus some specific questions that I had on the >printouts. I got this as reply: > > >amir, > >my job at the tournament was to be a neutral observer. as it turned >out, i represented gk more than ibm. for example, i had access to >gk's private dressing room behind the stage, but never exercised it. > >i spent every game in the control room talking to the ibm operators - >all of the ones not on camera -- and watching the multi-camera views >of the playing room. i saw the live printout of the screen of every >move of every game. i asked many questions and had forthcoming answers. >i was quite familiar with the printout and operation of db over >the years. it really hasnt changed much from cmu days. i had long >technical discussions with the programmers. > >in my opinion - based on a large number of inputs - there was >absolutely no underhanded dealings with the conduct of the computer. > >i got the printouts to game 2 sometime near game 4. i was >disappointed about the delay by ibm in producing the printouts, but >they were as i remembered them. i studied them for a day before i >replied to gk. i then studied them for a total of several days after >that. i reported to gk that i thought the evaluation and intention >for 35 Bd6 was clear. the evaluation for 36 ab5 shows a clear horizon >effect - delaying something bad by throwing in an exchange. the >evaluation for 37 Be4 shows an alpha cutoff and a scramble for an >alternate move. the pattern is quite consistent. i had seen similar >patterns in nearly every game. the magnitude of the values were not >unexpected. > >ken > > >Since this reply didn't answer some of my questions on the printout, I tried a >follow up question, and ultimately got this: > > >>> What about my other point ? > >i'm not going to comment on ibm's printout. >it is not something i would do. >i've told you my conclusions. > >ken > > >I have immense respect for Ken and I think his conclusion as he stated it >carries a lot of weight. > >Still, I was disappointed by some things in his answer. It seems he looked at >the printout from the purely technical point of view, and didn't really get into >any problem related to the position on the board. For example, his conclusion >that axb5 is played due to the horizon effect, delaying Qb6 for one move, does >not agree well with the position or with the printout analysis (and is not >flattering to DB either). He says about evaluations that their magnitudes were >not unexpected, and that I don't agree with either. I don't understand what he >means by his comment on move 35, because IBM did not deliver printouts for this >move. Most of all, he didn't address the question that Kasaprov was really >asking, of why DB passed on winning a pawn in move 36. It would have been >natural to ask the DB team for explanations. Maybe he did that, but he doesn't >tell it. > >I don't know why he feels bound not to discuss the printouts. > >Amir Amir, Here is some more information for you. The journalist in question is Jeff Kisseloff. At the time I spoke with him in email he was very cooperative. If you want his email address I will tell you. He is also mentioned on the official IBM pages. Here is the article. Ed -------------------------------------------------- http://www.echonyc.com/~hearst/otr/ma/archive/kisseloff1.html Deep-Sixed by Deep Blue When Jeff Kisseloff agreed to cover the Kasparov-Deep Blue match for IBM's Web site, he didn't know that his press pass would eventually be taken away by IBM's p.r. goons. A cautionary tale. I've spent much of the last 12 years writing two books. They didn't make me much money, but they say what I want them to say. I write about what concerns me, and my loyalty is to the welfare of those who might read my work. I'm a journalist. My sweaters might have holes in them, but I don't do p.r. So how on earth did I end up covering the Kasparov-Deep Blue match for IBM? How did I end up in a situation where my copy had to be okayed not by a copy chief but by a public-relations staffer? And — strangest of all — how did I end up under virtual IBM house arrest in the basement of Manhattan's Equitable Center, where the match was played? What follows is the tale of this reporter's first — and last — fantastic voyage into the pseudo-journalistic bowels of a corporate Web site. everal weeks ago, a friend of mine told me that IBM's Web site needed writers to cover the match. I was skeptical, of course, but when I spoke to an IBM editor, he indicated I'd be able to cover the match as a journalist, not a spin doctor. My assignment was to cover the Kasparov camp — the enemy, so to speak — and conversations with my editor led me to assume that my stories wouldn't need to reflect familial warmth toward Deep Blue and IBM. I turned out to be wrong. Throughout the match, the Equitable Center was overflowing with hundreds of journalists, grandmasters, and chess fans. IBM's p.r. staff worked the press room with the expertise of seasoned politicians. Their Man-vs.-Machine mantra bounced off their lips like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." It was so catchy that even if it wasn't quite the truth, nearly every reporter ran with it. But the slogan masked an even deeper truth, one that IBM preferred to keep buried. Kasparov was not simply playing a computer, or even a team of grandmasters. (IBM started the tournament saying only one grandmaster helped program Deep Blue. By the end of the match, it was copping to four.) The champion was facing off against the whole corporation, which had mobilized its considerable resources to knock him off. A lot was riding on the success of Deep Blue's microprocessors, and it would be no surprise that after the victory, IBM's stock rose dramatically. Psychology played a huge role in Kasparov's defeat, and IBM, intent on getting under the champion's skin, pushed every button it could. The machinations of the Deep Blue team so angered the champion that before Game Four he actually quit the match and had to be cajoled back to the table. This incident, like most of the other backstage battles, went unreported. My own troubles with IBM began after Game Two, which Deep Blue won handily. Hours after Kasparov resigned the game, word spread that the champion had missed a draw opportunity; Kasparov's people later confirmed that he had. This was a big story, and I had the inside scoop. There was perhaps an even bigger story, too: Kasparov was suspicious of the computer's ability to mimic the play of a human grandmaster. Was someone feeding it moves? "How could it play like a patzer one day and like Anatoly Karpov the next?" Frederic Friedel, Kasparov's technical advisor, asked. "It doesn't make any sense to us." Other than "buffet," "scoop" is a reporter's favorite word, and I dashed back to the Web room like Gene Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain." I had no reason to think my editors would be any less thrilled than I was. hen I told them what I had, not only were they not thrilled, they didn't want me to write the story. IBM's powers-that-be would not abide by any criticism of Deep Blue's play. But I persuaded my editors that since the news was already buzzing over the Internet, we'd look foolish not to mention it. They still didn't want me to write about Kasparov's suspicions. In his comments after the game, though, Kasparov did everything but come out and say IBM was cheating, so my editors had no choice but to let me report on it. In the piece I wrote the morning of Game Three, I did include Friedel's quote about the computer's uneven play, but I knew it was doomed as soon as my editor said he'd have to run it by the p.r department. He did, and over my objections they removed the quote, along with another from Friedel wondering out loud whether the computer's brilliant play in Game Two was a fluke. (Another change was also made, but this one I could laugh at. Friedel bought Kasparov a present for winning game one. The gift was the Encarta CD-ROM encyclopedia, which Kasparov threatened to memorize overnight. The problem was that Encarta is a product of what might be Deep Blue's ultimate opponent — Bill Gates and Microsoft. The word "Encarta" had to come out.) The next morning, after I handed in my a.m. story, I took the elevator up to the 35th floor to check out the set where the match was actually played. Stepping into the hallway, I was met by one of the floor managers, who was wearing an earpiece and seemed to enjoy playing the role of a Secret Service man. "You're wanted upstairs," he said. "You can't stay here." was immediately escorted to the press room, where another guard, this one with a walkie talkie, took me into the elevator. After reporting to a colleague that I was, in effect, in custody, he took me down to the basement. During the trip, he said I was spotted earlier in the day on the 35th floor in the vicinity of the Deep Blue team, and that certain IBM employees were insinuating that I was a mole for the Kasparov team. The notion was hilarious, especially since Kasparov's agent refused to talk to me because he thought I was a spy for IBM! When I told them he had the wrong person, he insisted he didn't, and he told me that my IBM badge, which gave me access to the floor, would be taken away. And it was, in a scene reminiscent of one from the old TV show "Branded," wherein Chuck Connors had his stripes removed for alleged cowardice during the Civil War. So there I was in the Web room, without a badge and with a security guard outside the door. I could leave, but without a badge I wouldn't be able to return. I was stuck. That's when we in the Web room began calling the place "the gulag." Paranoia seemed to be an occupational hazard at IBM. During my incarceration, I was enjoying some prison chow when word came down that IBM CEO Lou Gerstner was about to visit. To my great amusement, his arrival was preceded by a team of security guards who actually cased the bathroom stalls before giving the okay that the coast was clear. I was soon handed a new badge that limited my access to the auditorium. Because of my alleged espionage activities, I was banned from the press room for the rest of the match. That was when I found out I was not just being charged with espionage — I could add sabotage to the list. Somehow, my original unedited story of the day before — the one that mentioned Kasparov's accusations of cheating — had been published on the Web site, and IBM was accusing me of somehow sneaking it on there. Now, I don't even know what HTML stands for. I had as much of a chance of outsmarting a bunch of geek programmers as I do of checkmating Kasparov. But because of this alleged sabotage, I was sentenced to report the rest of my stories from the basement auditorium, which is difficult if your main sources are on the 49th floor. (I had my fun, though: feeling sorry for me, my contacts fed me plenty of information from upstairs. When I included these tidbits in my reports that day, I made sure to write that they were "heard in the press room," just so the p.r. staff would choke when they read the words.) It was frustrating. My stories were being quoted around the world, yet suddenly I was being prevented from doing my job by the very people I was making look good. What the p.r. people couldn't see was that my reports, by their very appearance, helped give the IBM web site more credibility, because they came from the opposing camp. If ever a p.r. staff was shooting its own company in the foot, this was it. Before Game Five, my frustrations boiled over. When the New York Times reporter, Bruce Weber, saw me stewing in the lobby, he asked me what was going on. I told him my story. After he spoke to the flack in charge, she ordered the guillotine blade dropped. Several people in the Web room pleaded for me, but to no avail. I was to go after I handed in my post-game article. My editor was shaking when he gave me the word. But there was one last dose of twisted IBM logic. That afternoon, a security guard told me a wonderful story that he had heard on his walkie talkie. In an earlier game, Kasparov took 40 minutes to make a move. The IBM representative across the board from him began to fall asleep, and the team had to replace him. I thought it was a great story, because it made the Deep Blue team seem human. It was the last thing I wrote. They cut it. Jeff Kisseloff is a New York-based freelance writer. He is the author of two books, most recently "The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961" (Viking/Penguin). 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