Man vs Machine : Garry Kasparov vs Deep Blue Super Computer

And following that, I'm going to talk about my favorite website of all time, and hopefully encourage you to visit it and become part of what I think is the most interesting online community that I have ever been a part of. So, that said, let's start the show. You are listening to the fifteenth episode of English with Dane. Hit it with a lot of the 19th century. So let's check in with history.com and see what happened on a day like today, but several years ago.

For this one, we go back to the year 1997, so not that long ago, 22 years ago to be precise. And the headline reads, Deep Blue beats Kasparov. Before we continue though, I wanted to take this opportunity to clear up para aclarar a mistake that is very common among my students. So the headline uses the verb to beat, B-E-A-T, which means to defeat someone or something. And it's different to the verb to win.

As you know, most of my students are Spanish speakers, and in Spanish we use the verb ganar, which means to win. However, in English we use two different verbs to express this, and they have to be used in different contexts. So you win a competition, you win a prize, you win a contest, but you beat the other team, you beat the other player. Remember to beat means to defeat, okay? Derrotar. So a lot of my students say things like, I won him, instead of I beat him.

If you say I won him, it means that the person is the prize, the trophy, and that now they are yours because you won them. That's incorrect. What you should say is I beat him or I beat you or I beat her. Okay? You get the point. So back to Deep Blue and Kasparov. So on this day in 1997, IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue makes chess history by defeating Gary Kasparov, or Kasparov, the chess champion, widely regarded as the greatest who has ever lived.

The Russian master conceded defeat after 19 moves in the sixth game of the tournament, losing the match 2.5 or 2.5 to 3.5. And it was the first defeat of a reigning world champion by a machine in tournament play. So in these competitions, you play several games, okay? And you get one point for a win, half a point for a draw or a tie, and zero points for a loss. So Kasparov conceded defeat after 19 moves in the sixth game of the tournament, losing the match two and a half to three and a half.

It continues and says, Deep blue, which can analyze 200 million chess moves a second, had met Kasparov once before, but the human had been able to hold his own against the computer. To hold your own means to retain a position of strength. So, in other words, Kasparov was able to defeat Deep Blue. Before their second meeting, Kasparov had never lost a professional chess match. By the way, this was maybe the biggest event in the history of chess.

The amount of attention and media coverage that this game received was unlike any other chess event. I mean, it was a huge moment if you think about it. IBM decided to build a supercomputer that could beat the best chess player ever. And it represented a milestone in the world of computing, in the world of technology, engineering, chess, etc. Let's dive in a little bit deeper. So, game one, the first game. It says Kasparov was shocked at Deep Blue's play in this game.

Move number 44 in this first game is said to be the result of a computer bug or glitch when the computer could not figure out what move to play and simply collapsed. However, it led to a victory for Deep Blue. Game number two of the match was the most controversial encounter of the whole thing. Kasparov lost, and after the loss, he made it known, or he told people, that he felt that the IBM team had cheated by receiving outside information from a grandmaster of chess, starting with move 36.

In a later interview, though, in 2016, Kasparov said that after much analysis and looking at both his play and the computer's play, he takes back his conclusions on what happened during this game. So at first, he thought that the deep blue team was cheating, but after studying the game, he took it back, so he changed his mind. Game three. For this game, Kasparov's focus would be put to the test, so would be challenged after the conflicts of round two.

The question was if Kasparov could continue the match and put that last game behind him in order to play his best chess. To put something behind you means to forget about it and to get over it, right? Superarlo, and to not let it affect what you are doing. Let's continue. The interesting part of this third game was Kasparov's anti-computer opening, which was a bit of a revolution in chess at the time. However, this game resulted in a draw.

In game four, Kasparov used the same strategy as the last game by playing a slightly strange opening to stop the computer from doing anything special it might have programmed. Deep Blue gained a space advantage, but Kasparov was able to recover and keep the game balanced. This game also resulted in a draw. Game five was another draw, but this game was a real fight from both teams. Just like Game 4, Game 5 was also another draw, but was apparently a very competitive match.

And then there's game six. It says, the final game of the 1997 match of Kasparov versus Deep Blue shocked Kasparov and the world. Deep Blue played very aggressively, sacrificing a knight, Gabal, on move number eight, which is apparently super risky, okay? And Kasparov never recovered from this stunning move, and he went down in flames in just 19 moves. To go down in flames is an idiom that we use that means to fail spectacularly.

So after that move by Deep Blue, Kasparov went down in flames and lost in 19 moves. Again, this was a huge deal, right? This was a really important event because this match was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer under tournament conditions. Nowadays, I think there are computers that would have no problem in this type of environment. And recently there was another similar style match.

Don't know if you remember reading about this on the news, but in 2016 in Seoul, Korea, Lee Sedol played a match of Go against this computer that was programmed and developed by Google Deep Mind. It was called Alpha Go, and this competition wasn't even close. Go, by the way, is an abstract strategy board game, okay, juego de mesa, for two players, in which the objective is to surround more territory than the opponent.

This game was invented in China more than 2,500 years ago and is actually believed to be the oldest board game continuously played to the present day. So the 18-time champion Li Sedol only won one match out of five, and it was clear that he was no match for the Google Deep Mind program. As you can imagine, this match has been compared to the Kasparov against Deep Blue matches of 1996 and 1997 that we just spoke about.

I wonder what the next challenge will be, and if it's even possible nowadays to beat such advanced programs. I don't know. I guess time will tell. Okay, quick music break, and I'll be back in a second with more English with Dane. And I wanted to talk about a website that has become my favorite website of all time over the last years. It's a place where you can find a community about anything that you could be interested in.

It's a place where you can learn about lots of things, discuss any topics, and much, much more. The website is called Reddit, spelled R-E-D-D-I-T. And it's called that because if you frequent this site, right, if you go on this site frequently, it's something that you end up saying a lot. People will show you things and you'll probably say, I already read it on Reddit. So let me explain what it is, or try at least, because it's not a super easy thing to explain.

Firstly, you can think of Reddit as the front page of the internet, which is actually what it says on the site if you go on it. But that's a bit of a confusing statement. You understand what they're trying to tell you, but if you don't know what Reddit is, then it's a little bit tricky. So you can think of Reddit like you can think of Reddit as a giant forum, I guess. Well, not really.

It's more like a giant collection of forums where people can share news, content, etc., or comment on other people's posts. Reddit is divided into over a million communities known as subreddits, and each of these subreddits covers a different topic.

If you are interested in Game of Thrones, for example, you can subscribe to the Game of Thrones subreddit, in which people discuss theories, critiques, interesting information, jokes, memes, etc. And you would be surprised to see the amount of content that is generated. If you are interested in anything else, however strange it may be, I'm positive that you will find a subreddit dedicated specifically to that.

I have been going on Reddit for almost a decade, and I'm constantly amazed by the level of variety and depth that can be found. Oh, and there's a really big aspect of Reddit that I should mention before we continue with this explanation. On Reddit, you can upvote or downvote individual posts and comments. Each post and comment has two arrows next to it.

And if you think it's a good post or a funny post, an interesting post or anything you think that deserves to be seen, que merece servisto, you can upvote it by clicking the arrow pointing up. However, if you don't like it or if you don't think it's a good post or comment, you can downvote by clicking the arrow pointing down. But what does this mean? It means that the top posts, the best posts, will appear at the top of the page. Let's say you submit a post to the Game of Thrones subreddit.

Your post is talking about a personal theory, right? Something that you think is going to happen. If people like it or think it's interesting, your post will receive a lot of upvotes, which means it will quickly rise to the top and more people will find it. So the beauty of this is that because of Reddit's algorithm, these posts then disappear after a day or so, and new posts have priority. They don't really disappear, they just get pushed farther down.

Because of all of this, you don't always see the same posts. Every time you go onto Reddit and you visit your favorite subreddits, there will be new content, new discussions, etc. Well, most of the time, depending on the subreddit. Some are not very popular. This is a bit dangerous though, because it makes Reddit one of the most absorbing websites you will ever find. But it also makes Reddit one of the most informative, funny, entertaining, and useful sites you'll ever find. What else?

So, according to what subreddits you are subscribed to, your front page will look one way or another. What do I mean by front page? Well, if you go on Reddit.com, you will see a big list of posts. And it can look a little bit confusing. But essentially, what you are seeing is a big list of the trending things in the most popular subreddits. But if you sign up, Citapuntas, which is free, then the first thing you'll see is the top posts for each subreddit that you are subscribed to.

So it becomes a tool to keep track of everything that you're interested in. The more subreddits you are subscribed to, the more variety you will find on your front page. One of the best things about Reddit, however, isn't the posts, but the comments and the discussions that arise. Like many forums, people are encouraged to comment, to agree, to disagree, and continue the discussion. And this is where a lot of the value is.

And because you can upvote and downvote comments, the best ones or funniest ones will be the most visible. As I'm saying all of this, I'm realizing that it's really hard to describe the magic of Reddit without experiencing it, without giving it a chance. There was a video that I saw once that described Reddit in a really simple way. It said, If Google is where people go to find things, Reddit is where people go to see what people have found. Let me repeat that.

And I mentioned how the first time I heard that word, I thought it was a bit silly. But Reddit has shown me that it is a very real and true concept. Whenever I meet someone who is a Reddit user, I know right away that we have a lot in common. Maybe we aren't subscribed to the same subreddits, and maybe we don't have many interests in common, but there's like this extra thing, this extra sense of community that is there.

And I guess it's the same thing that you feel when you meet someone from the same city as you or from the same country or town. You might not have that much in common, but there's this extra thing that you can't explain. Okay, I wanted to take a second to talk about one of my favorite subreddits and to show you the reach, el alcance, that Reddit has, as well as the influence in a way. The subreddit I wanted to talk about is called AMA, which stands for Ask Me Anything.

This is one of the most popular subreddits, and in my opinion, it's maybe the best. So, if you are a well-known person, a famous person, or someone with a particularly unique life experience, whether it be good or bad, you can post on this subreddit and invite everyone to ask you anything. And this is where Reddit really shines.

People will ask questions before the interview, and these questions will be upvoted and downvoted, so the best questions or the most interesting questions will be at the top and will have a greater opportunity to be answered. Then the famous person or the person with a unique life experience will go through the questions and answer them. Obviously, not all of them, but a lot of them.

To give you an example of how popular this subreddit is, some of the people that have been interviewed are Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Seinfeld, etc. And these interviews are great, and I think they are much more honest and open than interviews that happen in normal or mainstream channels. Okay, I could talk about Reddit for hours, but I can't, so I'm going to stop here.

I encourage you to go on Reddit.com and become a part of the most entertaining and informative website on the internet. And I promise I don't work for them. They are not a sponsor of the show or anything like that. I'm just trying to spread the word because I think if you're not on Reddit, then you aren't missing out. Te lo estás perdiendo. Okay, that's the show for today. Don't forget to tune in on Wednesday for episode 16, which will be the movie review.

So far, most people have voted for Inception to be the movie of the week. So if nothing changes, then I will be reviewing Inception. I'll let you know the results of the poll after this show. In the meantime, don't forget to support the show by giving it a five-star review on iTunes, sharing it with your friends, family, work people, or anyone you think would enjoy it. Okay, talk soon. Bye bye.