Can Siri Explain AlphaZero?
AlphaZero's technology could be groundbreaking, but is leaving the chess world with so many questions. Maybe AlphaZero's little sister, Siri, can help?
An actual conversation I had this morning with Siri on my iPhone...
Siri, are you afraid of machine learning?
-- "The only thing to fear is fear itself."
Siri, is AlphaZero smarter than you?
-- "Who me?"
Siri, do you play chess?
-- "I'm sorry, Mike, I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that."
Siri, do you play games?
-- "This is about you, not me."
Siri, is chess hard?
-- "Interesting question, Mike."
Siri, what do you think about Google?
-- "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather Google later."
Siri, I'll ask again, what do you think about Google?
-- "I think, therefore I am. But let's not put Descartes before the horse."
Siri, are you afraid of Google?
-- "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Siri, what is the best operating system?
-- "Any truly rational being would say that OS X is the best. And I should know."
(Testing that rationality...) Siri, what's zero divided by zero?
-- "Imagine that you have zero cookies and split them evenly among zero friends. How many cookies does each person get? See, it doesn't make sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies. And you are sad that you have no friends."
Siri, are you smart?
-- "We intelligent agents don't really undergo IQ tests. But I scored off the charts in Zoltaxian Egg Carry."
Siri, do you even know what chess is?
(Siri thinks for a second, then opens up this on my phone...)
Company Contact and News Accreditation:
- Email: Mike@chess.com
- Phone: 1 (800) 318-2827
- Address: PO Box 60400 Palo Alto, CA 94306
Mike Klein began playing chess at the age of four in Charlotte, NC. In 1986, he lost to Josh Waitzkin at the National Championship featured in the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer." A year later, Mike became the youngest member of the very first All-America Chess Team, and was on the team a total of eight times. In 1988, he won the K-3 National Championship, and eventually became North Carolina's youngest-ever master. In 1996, he won clear first for under-2250 players in the top section of the World Open. Mike has taught chess full-time for a dozen years in New York City and Charlotte, with his students and teams winning many national championships. He now works at Chess.com as a Senior Journalist and at ChessKid.com as the Chief Chess Officer. In 2012, 2015, and 2018, he was awarded Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America. He has also previously won other awards from the CJA such as Best Tournament Report, and also several writing awards for mainstream newspapers. His chess writing and personal travels have now brought him to 99 countries.
