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Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess player to ever live, found his match not in a flesh-and-blood opponent, but in a machine.
Kasparov built his career on reading intentions accurately. But that’s a much-taller ask when the intentions you’re reading are completely sterile.
Under the scrutiny of a mass audience and blinding, hot television lights in a Manhattan office tower, the machine slid its rook into a corner square. Kasparov couldn’t read the move. The machine, Kasparov thought, was seeing too far down the board for him to keep up.
As a result, Kasparov was defeated.
