In the week since computers became the best chess-playing species on earth, we homo sapiens have proved that we remain world champs in at least one cognitive domain: rationalizing defeat. While Garry Kasparov was spending his post-match press conference accusing IBM of cheating, commentators around the world were finding other ways to minimize Deep Blue's triumph. CHESS, SHMESS! COMPUTERS STILL CAN'T HANDLE THE TOUGH STUFF, said the headline on a Boston Globe article that noted how much trouble machines have understanding a sentence or telling a dog from a cat. Britain's Daily Telegraph observed that computers "cannot be properly original" and...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
