July FIDE Rating List: Four Things

See the ChessBase story regarding Magnus' amazing attainment, which is now official.  Note several things about this all-time top ten list.  First, Carlsen's achievement at 19 is nothing short of amazing.  I anxiously wait to see just how much he will achieve.  Second, taken by itself, Fischer's inclusion on this list 38 years after reaching his peak rating is also amazing, but it is particularly so when one accounts for almost 40 years of inflation.  If memory serves, Fischer actually lost rating points by defeating World Champion Spassky.  Third, Kasparov's and Karpov's positions on the list are noteworthy because of the age of their ratings.  Karpov remains in the top ten despite the lapse of sixteen years and the attendant inflation, and Kasparov still holds the first position eleven years after his peak.  Neither Carlsen, nor anyone else, will likely bump him down anytime soon.  Finally, only one country has more than one player on this list.  Unsurprisingly, it is Russia with four.

Chess Metaphors: Aritificial Intelligence and the Human Mind II

See the ChessBase article on this book by Diego Rasskin-Gutman.  The pictures on the ChessBase site, primarily of Kasparov's 1985 32-computer simul, alone make the trip worthwhile.

Chess Metaphors: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Mind

Diego Rasskin-Gutman has written a book by the title of this post. The work has been translated from the Spanish by Deborah Klosky. MIT Press, 205 pp., $24.95. I have included the book in the Amazon scroll of books in the right margin. I haven't read the book, but I intend to. Garry Kasparov, however, has reviewed the book for The New York Review of Books, and if the book is as interesting as the review, it should be good.  One point that comes through from Kasparov is that the best computer minds engaged with the game of chess have been driven by financial gain and they have accordingly taken the path of least resistance in creating better chess software.  Kasparov's point would seem to be that the focus has been upon the incrementalism of brute strength gains made by modern computers, with little concern for innovation or anything that might pass for real artificial intelligence, and which might translate to any human endeavor other than chess.