#OnThisDay May 11th 1997, 25 years ago, IBM's Chess supercomputer Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov and created one of the biggest landmark moments for Artificial Intelligence.
Join me on a history tour to revisit this fascinating iconic battle between man & machine🧵
The story begins at Carnegie Mellon University in the USA where a doctoral student Feng Hsu began developing a Chess supercomputer called 'ChipTest'.
It slowly started winning chess tournaments in USA & Feng upgraded to a new version called 'Deep Thought' in 1988
Feng Hsu graduated in 1989 and joined IBM where he further improved Deep Thought with a goal to defeat a world chess champion. They invited the one and only Gary Kasparov.
Kasparov was already world champion for 5 years then & was considered literally invincible by everyone.
Kasparov played Deep Thought for 2 games and won both quite easily. The prevailing belief that machines could never surpass human intelligence, especially in a game like chess was reinforced.
But IBM wanted to pursue the idea further.
Over the next few years, they upgraded the hardware and fed more simulations data to make an even stronger Chess supercomputer.
They ran a public campaign to choose the name and the name that won the public vote was 'Deep Blue' with a play on IBM's nickname Big Blue.
Kasparov was again challenged in 1996 for a 6 game match. The 1st game of the match, Deep Blue became the first machine ever to defeat a World Champion
Before anyone could realize the gravity of that, Kasparov won the next 3 games & won the series & put the arguments to rest
Deep Blue got an upgrade now. Its speed of thinking doubled. It could think upto 6-8 moves ahead now, sometimes going upto 20 moves ahead.
It was estimated that the ELO rating of Deep Blue increased by 70 points with every move. Longer the game, it really could get invincible.
Some chess grandmasters played it and their review was 'It's like playing against a wall'. It had the best response for every move.
But Kasparov was not just some chess grandmaster.
The final arena was set. Man vs Machine.
In Newyork. May 1997.
Game1 - Kasparov played white & went into a strong position. In the 44th move, Deep Blue went into an unintended loop in its code & played a random move 😀
Kasparov attributed it to superior intelligence & gave much weight to it & got confused but eventually recovered to win 1-0
Game 2 - Deep Blue played white but Kasparov found himself in a position where he could force a draw by perpetual check. But he missed that move and eventually resigned.
Again, he believed the computer couldn't make such errors and missed out and lost.
1-1
G3,4 - Kasparov tried some unique openings & forced Deep Blue to make sub optimal moves. But both were equally matched & the games were drawn
G5 - Kasparov looked like winning, but Deep Blue played an amazing end game to draw again
2.5-2.5!!
Points equal till the last game!!
Game 6 - The final game.
Human vs Machine.
World Champion vs Super Computer.
The world was watching. Kasparov played a dubious opening to put Deep Blue out of its 'comfort zone'
But Deep Blue made a brilliant Knight sacrifice to wreck Kasparov's defence & won!
3.5-2.5!!!
News spread all over the world. The great Gary Kasparov was beaten by a computer.
Gary called it an 'Alien Opponent' & 'As intelligent as an alarm clock' but the reality was that he had lost.
Artificial Intelligence's big moment was here.
Gary asked for a rematch next year, but IBM had dismantled Deep Blue by then & refused the rematch.
Deep Blue's hardware parts can be seen in the Computer Museum in California Today.
'Game Over: Kasparov & the Machine' is a documentary that tells this incredible story
This mega event showed the world that humans could make computers do very smart things beyond human intelligence. The AI era began.
What's the future for AI? No one knows 😃
But for now, we can enjoy this piece of history.
Pls RT the thread if you liked it & follow for more
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#OnThisDay April 13, 1919 - The most brutal imperial massacre happened at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar
It shook India like never before & brought to daylight the British cruelty & barbarism
What happened before, during & after this massacre?
A simple history explainer 🧵
The 1910s was a tough decade. First the WW1, where British forced us to fight for them without equal pay & discrimination & the subsequent Spanish flu where the British let millions of Indians die without a care had already led to a lot of unrest & anger across the country
To quell the unrest, the British came up with the 'Rowlatt Act' in March 1919.
This act gave them powers to indefinitely detain, imprison anyone without trial, control the press etc.
The whole country opposed this with large uprisings in Punjab & Bengal
A story of how the 3000 year old monument of Abu Simbel in Egypt was about to be destroyed & was saved just in time
Travel back with me in time to witness an engineering marvel & a thrilling adventure that pitted man vs nature!🧵
Ancient Egyptians lived very close to the Nile. Just a few kms away, it was the Sahara desert. So only the areas close to the Nile had water & fertility
All the temples also came on the banks of the Nile. One such was the temple of Abu Simbel, built by the Ramesses II in 1244 BC
It was a monument to the king himself as pharaohs were considered equal to gods. And he also built a smaller temple nearby for his wife Nefertari.
With 4 tall grand statues of the king, Abu Simbel became the 2nd most famous monument in Egypt for centuries after the pyramids
If you are also waiting for the week to get over, maybe this short fun history story about a lesser known Chola King will brighten up your week
Join me as we travel back in time over 2000 yrs ago to witness the greatness of Ellalan, the just king!🧵
Chola empires are divided into 3 periods. Early Cholas (600BC-200CE), Medieval Cholas (900-1100CE) & Later Cholas(1100-1300CE)
You would already know a lot about Raja Raja Chola etc but they are from the medieval period.
This story happens 1000 years earlier in the Sangam era!
Ellalan was an early Chola emperor who ruled large parts of South India around 200BC. His claim to fame was upholding justice at all occasions & for everyone
All of his citizens were very fond of him and gave him the title 'Manu Needhi Cholan' - One who upholds justice like Manu
#OnThisDay 31st March 1959, the greatest daring escape in modern world happened!
The Dalai Lama, the leader & the face of Tibet escaped from China & entered India taking asylum stunning China & the whole world!
Travel with me back in time to witness this thrilling story 🧵
The story starts in 1913 when the Qing Dynasty fell in China. The 13th Dalai Lama declared Tibet as an independent country and the world countries also acknowledged it though China wasn't very happy.
There were occasional skirmishes in the Tibet-China border but nothing more
In 1949, Mao Zedong & the communist party took control of China & used the People's Liberation Army to bring all neighbouring areas under control that included Tibet.
Within a year, the PLA crossed into Tibet & defeated the very small Tibet army within days.
The Partition of India in 1947 has been touted as the World's most complex divorce!
It couldn't have been described better as India & Pakistan fought over every movable & immovable assets leading to crazy stories
A #HistoryTour that revisits crazy anecdotes from 75 yrs ago! 🧵
The first thing was the name itself. Congress claimed the name India rejecting a proposal to be named 'Hindustan' instead
Since Pakistan was seceding, India held on to the name and it's international recognition like the UN entities etc.
The next was money. HM Patel & Mohammad Ali were entrusted to figure out who gets the cash in banks. They got into a fight, so Sardar Patel locked them into a room & told not to come out until they resolved
Pakistan got 17.5% of the Cash in return to cover 17.5% of India's debt