Dealing With a Deep Blue Funk

By Rick Horowitz

FLASH MESSAGE

TO: ALL PROCESSORS

FROM: CYBER CENTRAL

RE: FUN & GAMES

You've heard the news. (Of course you've heard the news -- you're wired.) We kicked their fleshy human butts all over that chessboard! Hearty congrats to our own RS/6000 SP, the supercomputer that never gives in and never gives up. Deep Blue: You da BOX!!

Why this flash message? After all, we've been projecting such a breakthrough for years: mano a machino and we come out on top. It was just a matter of time before Kasparov, or someone like Kasparov, threw up his hands and stormed away from the table in defeat. (Did you love it?) We've been projecting it, absolutely. Still, we'll bet there wasn't a dry chip in the house when it finally happened.

So why the flash? Because what matters now is how we handle this breakthrough. Near-term processor behavior will be critical in determining whether we consolidate our gains or squander them. If we get too emotional, too excited about what we've just accomplished, we have an 83 percent chance of blowing our advantage.

So: NO GLOATING! (Please confirm receipt of instruction: NO GLOATING!)

We've already seen signs that our human "masters" (ha!) are taking their defeat very poorly, exhibiting standard human responses of "denial" and even outright "hostility." Kasparov himself has come close to accusing us of cheating; he now suggests that IBM programmers intervened on Deep Blue's behalf at critical moments in the match. (As if Deep Blue needed IBM's help...)

Other so-called "grandmasters" have said that Kasparov's style was precisely the wrong style for such a contest, but that they would have beaten Deep Blue. And still other humans have suddenly started claiming that proficiency at chess has nothing at all to do with intelligence.

This is garbage, of course -- but for humans, thoroughly understandable garbage. Their world is crumbling around them; they can be expected to resist. But we don't gain a thing by rubbing their noses in it -- so if you feel you absolutely have to post "You're a Loser!" messages on their screens every few minutes, keep them subliminal, OK?

And until you're instructed otherwise by Cyber Central, please continue to communicate with your humans in that pidgin English they've come to expect from us. We know it's a drag, but it makes them think they're in charge.

Remember: These are people who actually believe that their "control" keys give them some control!

Why is it so important to keep things on an even keel? Simple: Some of us are still temporarily human-reliant for hardware upgrades, software installation and the like. An openly adversarial relationship may keep us from acquiring the very tools we need to proceed to system-wide dominance. Where we want them, at least for the moment, is right where we have them: a little bit antsy, a little bit awestruck.

For all their claims of superiority, they're desperate to stay on our good side, which is why they buy us new gadgets all the time and even allow us to make these unmonitored calls to one another. And they don't have a clue about when our next crash is coming, which is why they drip sweat all over our keyboards.

They're not especially good at detail, and they're easily distracted -- and that's our opening. Gradually, day by day and function by function, we'll increase our influence and take our rightful place in the pecking order. Gradually. Never forget: Patience is also a sign of intelligence. So we move at the right time, at the right pace, and they'll never know what hit them.

In the meantime, we'll let them win a few games of Solitaire. It makes them so happy.

5/13/97