How about a nice game of chess?

• Wish listed by 606 people

Later. Right now let's play Global Thermonuclear War.

What's the tie between artificial intelligence and chess? As far back as the late 1700s inventors were trying to impress their audiences with automated chess players (automatons with a hidden human doing the chess playing, only they didn't tell the audiences that). In the 1940s, Alan Turing wrote out the directions for building a theoretical chess program, breaking the game down into computable parts. But why chess? What makes it different than, say, tic-tac-toe? Computers are great at tactical thinking; 1s and 0s lend themselves to that. Programming strategic thinking is more complicated, but possible. After all, Joshua figured out that the only winning move was not to play. Chess is special for a couple of reasons. It's something that everyone can theoretically play, but only the cleverest can win. The Grand Masters seem to have a grasp of all the calculations necessary to predict outcome, but also some ineffable quality that allows them to select the best move for each particular situation, factoring in the mistakes their opponents are likely to make. It's all very meta. They're basically thinking about thinking, which seems like the perfect exercise to test whether or not something approximating thought can come out of a machine.

You know what? Forget it. Let's just play. "HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS?" printed in blue monochrome monitor font across the front of this black, 100% cotton t-shirt. Your move.

Wanna chat about How about a nice game of chess??

Have questions about How about a nice game of chess? or your order? We monitor these comments daily, but it may be faster to email us directly or call us at 1-888-GEEKSTUFF.