Today in History—February 17: Man Versus Machine—Who Would Win?

February 17, 1996: The day a man (narrowly) defeated a machine

On this day in 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov defeated IBM’s Deep Blue computer—but it wasn’t as easy as he had predicted. He had once stated that he would never lose to a machine, but perhaps he was too confident. The very first game of the six-round tournament saw Kasparov defeated in what he called “a shattering experience.” It was the first instance of a machine defeating a human within the confines of a traditional chess tournament—and possibly the first time Kasparov had had his confidence shaken by a machine.

Kasparov, a chess prodigy and fearless, decisive player, was born in what is now Azerbaijan in 1963 and became the Soviet youth champion by the age of 13. He won an international tournament when he was just 16 and became the youngest world chess champion at 22. His encounter with IBM’s Deep Blue marked the first time a reigning world chess champion faced off against a computer on the world stage.

Kasparov would later say that Deep Blue had given him a run for his money during that first match because of one innocuous move—a simple pawn sacrifice that appeared to serve no greater purpose. Kasparov described it as “a wonderful and extremely human move” in which the machine appeared to display “a new kind of intelligence.”

Of course, it was less mystical than that: Deep Blue, like many artificial intelligence-based machines, could “see” many moves ahead and had presumably used its powers of probability to predict that losing a pawn would not affect its chances of winning the match. Kasparov, once he understood this line of thinking, was significantly less intimidated. He said in an essay for Time, “I could figure out its priorities and adjust my play. It couldn’t do the same to me.”

Fun Fact

Kasparov’s advice to IBM’s engineers after defeating one of their computers in 1989 was to “teach it to resign earlier.”

Now armed with a better understanding of Deep Blue and its limitations, Kasparov did not underestimate his mechanical opponent after the initial loss—and went on to win three additional games (and tie two more), ultimately emerging as the tournament champion. The victory was a narrow one, however, and underscored how rapidly computers were advancing, especially in the context of structured, rules-based games such as chess.

In a 1997 rematch, Deep Blue defeated Kasparov at last—a turning point that saw machine finally prevailing over man.