Chess Grandmasterin’ – The Weird Side of the Internet

Chess Grandmasterin’ – The Weird Side of the Internet – by Liam Sweeny.

Have you ever been so good at something that you just wanted to take on the whole world? Technically, if you don’t feel this way about your skill, you probably need to get back at it until you feel like you do, but that’s neither here nor there. But what if you could go up against the world?

Magnus Carlsen. Norwegian chess grandmaster. On April 4^th, he played an online game against “the world,” an open group of about 143,000. He played these people in moves that took 24 hours each, against people who collectively voted on their next move.

It was a draw. You gotta admit, that’s impressive. Catch a draw after playing a whole city’s worth of people.

Carlsen became a top player in 2010 at the age of 19. He’s won five World Championships and has remained the no. 1 player for over a decade.

It’s curious to wonder who wins out, 143,000 people or an AI supercomputer that can only consume as much energy as 143,000 people do. I side with the humans, not only because it’s popular to side with the humans, but because people bring something to the table an AI can’t; chaos. Humans can be comfortable with random imperfect stuff. If a human can make a blistering mistake, I think a human might be able to interpret what the player was thinking when they made the move. AI would just assume the player meant to make that move. Also, you know what, screw AI. Pick 143,000 humans purely for bragging rights.

Is it also funny that one person could play a game evocative of castles against enough people to actually inhabit a real castle. This would be a great way to conduct wars.

One last note. Magnus Carlsen? Magnus. Love that first name, very “New World Order.” There’s some sixteenth century manuscript with this name on it.

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