Artificial Intelligence
AI and Its Impact on Chess
AI and engines have forever changed the game of chess.
Today, top players use engine preparations in world championships and everyday individuals utilize computers to learn and advance their games. AI has fundamentally transformed chess for the better, however, concerns also arise in regard to cheating…
Introduction
While the origin of chess remains a controversy debated among historians and players globally, the widespread variations of the sport evolved slowly. Since its inception, the popularity of chess has been gradually growing, with new elements of competition added over time (Encyclopedia Britannica 2021). However, the introduction of AI has holistically transformed chess more than any other inventions.
This article evaluates the impacts AI brings to chess and argues that the introduction of AI has positively impacted the sport. AI is clearly responsible for fundamentally shaping chess into an entertainment powerhouse and can be credited for its popularity. AI has not only changed how chess is played on the world stage by top grandmasters, but also made chess more accessible to everyday individuals across the globe.
Deep Blue defeats world champion Garry Kasparov
In 1997, IBM supercomputer Deep Blue triumphed over world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game series. This event drew millions of people into chess, and this victory was a landmark moment in AI chess engines (Follett 2019). AI expert Murray Campbell explained how Deep Blue used AI technology to beat Kasparov.
Because AI technologies were still new, the Deep Blue team relied on algorithms to efficiently evaluate possible continuations while chess grandmasters provided basic opening strategies (Greenemeier 2017). It did not matter that AI technologies were new; after the match, chess’s popularity and enthusiasm for AI skyrocketed. With Deep Blue’s triumph over Kasparov, the world had learned that AI-fueled engines could outmaneuver the world’s best chess player.
This was a significant turning point in chess history. Deep Blue’s victory was only the beginning of the age of AI engines. It was a positive revolution as Deep Blue had presented new windows of opportunity and popularized chess.
AlphaZero continues AI dominance using machine learning
Today, AI’s superiority continues in chess through AlphaZero, which demonstrated AI’s supremacy through machine learning¹. By updating its neural network², AlphaZero discovered chess principles on its own (Strogatz 2018). AlphaZero went on to demolish Stockfish, which at the time could easily defeat any player in the world.
In a hundred-game match against Stockfish, AlphaZero scored 28 wins and 72 draws, a remarkable achievement. AlphaZero played differently than other engines by appealing to innovative strategies and tactics. AlphaZero’s distinctive playing style was incredibly captivating to chess enthusiasts, and this drew more players and popularized the game (Strogatz 2018).
Today, there continue to be competitions among chess engines, which is a positive influence as engines continue to show the world the most impeccable chess games ever.
The impact of computer engines on high-level competitions
Chess engines also had a profound impact on human grandmasters (Campitelli 2013). There are distinctive differences between a match played before the introduction of AI and after. For example, a match between the best players in the 1980s, such as between Kasparov and Karpov, had no reinforcement elements from engines.
Today, even world champion Magnus Carlsen uses opening moves created with engine assistance, which allows him to surprise opponents with non-traditional moves and daring traps in the opening (Campitelli 2013). Furthermore, engines have revolutionized how the whole chess game is played, specifically defence and offence.
Human grandmasters could favour an active plan of attack, but since computers evaluate millions of positions, engines conclude that it is better to focus on slow and steady improvements.
Over the years, grandmasters have adopted many of the engine’s moves and strategies, resulting in the delivery of a higher level of gameplays to chess enthusiasts worldwide (Follett 2019). The ability of AI to assist in the opening preparation and the discovery of new ideas has allowed universal top-level chess gameplay to reach new heights.
Computer engines cause cheating in competitions
While the benefits that AI-enabled engines bring to the chess world are immeasurable, it is also essential to acknowledge the unintended consequences, such as online cheating and fraud. Almost 4000 players worldwide registered for the European Online Chess Championship in May 2020. Approximately 2% of all players were disqualified for using computer engines, which exposed the chess community’s rampant cheating problem (Duca Iliescu 2020).
However, with advances in detection technology, there have been ways to combat cheating effectively. FIDE has already approved a complex cheat detection system with a behaviour-tracking module for FIDE Online Arena games. Chess.com, a major player in chess, has combated cheating using a statistical model.
Using millions of chess games stored in its database, chess.com can assess the probability that a human player will match an engine’s top choices and determine whether cheating has occurred (Duca Iliescu 2020). As of 2020, chess.com claims it has closed nearly half a million accounts for cheating. Today, most closures on chess.com are automated, and cheating has been significantly reduced.
Conclusion
AI-based computer engines have fundamentally transformed the sport of chess. Deep Blue’s victory over Kasparov in 1997 declared a new era of chess dominated by AI, and AlphaZero further demonstrated AI’s supremacy in its mind-blowing machine learning capability. It is clear that computer engines are here to stay, and their impact on chess as a sport has been positive.
Though problems exist with online cheating, the benefits AI brings to the chess community undoubtedly outweigh its flaws. From making chess more accessible to players worldwide to elevating and demonstrating top-level game plays through innovations, AI has arguably been the best thing that ever happened to chess. In 2021, chess saw its biggest boom yet in light of the global pandemic, and the Netflix hit series The Queen’s Gambit.
Furthermore, charismatic top players such as grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura further publicized chess through social platforms such as Twitch and YouTube (Behler 2020). Millions of new players have now entered the chess arena, and it does not look like the sport’s popularity is declining any time soon.
[1]: “Machine learning is a branch of AI in which systems automatically learn and improve without being explicitly programmed” (JITSE 2021).
[2]: “Neural network is a series of algorithms that help AI recognize relationships in a set of data” (Chen 2020).
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