From the Archive: Garry Kasparov on Deep Blue, Fear, and the Future of AI

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Presenting the Archive. Classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw, unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt everything from the ground up.

[00:00:28] Fear of making mistakes always guarantees your mistake. Why is that? Because, you know, it paralyzes you. It's a game of chess. It's a game of choices, so you have to make decisions. How can you kind of hypnotize yourself in daily life to avoid this fear?

[00:00:47] No, look, I think fear is always with us. I don't believe when some people say, oh, this man, this woman, they don't have fear. We all do have our fears. The question is how we can handle it. In cases where you don't have a clear preference, you know, you go with your sort of natural instincts.

[00:01:15] I want to do a brief intro here. This is, you know, I've done several hundred podcasts with all sorts of people. But if people ask me over the past several years, who is the number one or two person you would absolutely love to have on the podcast is Garry Kasparov. You were like number one in the world in chess for 20 some years. 20 years, yes. And world champion for most of that. I've been following your career since, I don't know, 1982. Read your... You were in the same generation. Read fighting chess.

[00:01:44] I'm 2200 rated, so I always was keeping track of you. Not you. I'm a gnat. I'm an ant on the floor compared to you. But world chess champion for so many years, and you were for a while the coach of the current world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. Now, you wrote this, your latest book, Deep Thinking, for the first time, you wrote about this famous or I would say infamous match from 20 years ago. Two matches. Two matches. Deep Blue versus you.

[00:02:14] It was the first time a computer, and this one was owned by IBM, first time a computer beat the world chess champion in a match. And ever since the computer was invented, it was kind of considered iconic that if a computer could beat chess... The Holy Grail. Holy Grail. Yeah, it was the Holy Grail. If a computer could beat the world champion in chess, then there's AI. And you were there, you were the world champion at the time. I was the Holy Grail. You were the Holy Grail.

[00:02:37] And I want to say, I was in the audience for that match in 1997, and in 1989, I was office mates... You also watched the match in 1989 when I played with this team? I was office mates with Feng Shui. Ah, Feng Shui. I played on Chip Test before it was renamed Deep Thought. And I would play against openings, you know, on Chip Test. Wow. So I know all about from beginning to... IBM offered me a job to work on Deep Blue. Wow!

[00:03:07] And you know why I turned it down? Because of a girl. I stayed in Pittsburgh. Big mistake. I should have worked on Deep Blue and been part of the team that won. But this book was so interesting. Why did you write it now, 20 years later? Oh, I mean, let's not mislead, you know, our listeners, you know. It's not just about Kaspar versus Deep Blue, you know. It's about, you know, history of what I believe the most important relations of the 21st century, humans and machines.

[00:03:33] And chess, you're right, saying that from the very beginning of computer science, chess was seen by, you know, giants and legends like Alan Turing and Claude Shannon as the, you know, as the ultimate test. Yeah. If machine solves this test, means beating the world champion, that's a proof of artificial intelligence. Okay. Who am I to criticize them? But they were wrong. Machine won this match, but it was as intelligent as your alarm clock. Well, that's just it. 10 million dollar alarm clock.

[00:04:03] But still, you know. But that's just it. Everything is sort of AI until it's done, and then they realize, oh, that's not real intelligence. Yeah, we can spend a lot of time, you know, discussing the semantics, you know, what is artificial intelligence, you know. Does it mean that we have to, you know, replicate the process in human brains, or we should look simply at the result? And if machine reaches this result, you know, is it artificial intelligence by definition? Or, you know, it's still, you know, there's still a big gap between the way the humans making

[00:04:31] decisions, you know, the rich conclusions, and machines, you know, okay, achieving somehow similar results. Well, I want to reel back just one second about your career itself. So, obviously, you weren't born world champion. It took work. And I'm very interested in just peak performance and what got you to this point where you were the Holy Grail. So, you were born, obviously, talented, and your talent was recognized. Early. Very early on.

[00:05:01] But what then separated you out from, let's say, your peers who may have been just as talented? Like, what do you, like, just what do you say? Wait, wait, wait, wait, slow down. I mean, as talented as probably as a stretch. Though, I get it. I was lucky, you know. I was born in a family where, you know, chess was kind of part of culture. So, my father and my mother, they usually spend their winter nights, you know, looking at the newspaper chess sections, you know, solving problems.

[00:05:31] So, a few other relatives, you know, they play chess. Again, an amateur's level, but chess was there as in many, you know, intelligent families in the Soviet Union. And also, I was born in the Soviet Union. So, when the talent was discovered, you know, I had an opportunity sort of to learn, you know, to be taught by, you know, semi-professionals, then professionals. So, the framework for my talent to be discovered and to be polished, you know, was there.

[00:06:01] So, that's what you may call luck. But the talent was quite unique, you know. So, since, you know, I discovered chess, you know, I moved very quickly, you know, just, you know, beating, you know, not only, you know, kids of my age, but, you know, older age. And by age 12, I was already the Soviet junior champion under 18. So, you know, it was very natural for all people who helped me, starting, of course, with my mother.

[00:06:29] My father died when I was seven, but my mother spent her entire life, you know, helping me and making sure that, you know, my talent will help me to reach the very top of the world of chess. Yes, not only in chess, of course. So, would you say, so then, I guess, she or the environment introduced you to Mikhail Botvinnik, who was a former world champion. Yeah, it's a part of the Soviet chess system.

[00:06:57] So, people believe, and they're wrong in believing that chess was a part of the education of the Soviet Union. Actually, it was never part of education. That's what I've been trying to accomplish, you know, after I became the world champion. I've been doing it now around the world. But in the Soviet Union, chess was viewed as a very important ideological tool to demonstrate, to display the intellectual superiority of communist system over decadent West.

[00:07:24] So, that's why, you know, there was a very sophisticated network of searching for young talents. And when the talent is found, to make sure that this talent will not be wasted and will be given proper attention to, you know, just to go as high as possible.

[00:07:39] So, at age 10, when I played for the team of my native Republic of Azerbaijan at the first all-Soviet youth games, and I was 10, and I played with boys that were 14 and 15 years old. And I did fairly well, and I was noticed and invited to Botvinnik school. And then again, my progress was fast. And at every level, I received certain attention that was required.

[00:08:08] That's why, you know, I could make this, you know, this fast progress without wasting time, you know, for, you know, searching, while searching for specific assistance. So, but there was not just a talent at chess, there was also a talent at, I mean, you were also known as like one of the most prepared world champions ever. That's more about the style, you know, it's just, I had an appetite for analyzing, you know, chess games and looking deeply in the opening positions.

[00:08:36] And of course, working with always my great mentor, Mikhail Botvinnik, the former world chess champion who was a scientist, you know. Some chess players, they're artists, some of them are scientists, some of them are just, you know, just playing for sports. So, some of them are, you know, a combination of all these factors. But Botvinnik was predominantly a scientist and it helped me to actually to sharpen my analytical skills. And I had appetite even now, you know, just age 54. I'm, you know, I've retired for more than 10 years.

[00:09:06] I still have an interest, you know, analyzing games, looking at, you know, other games played by top players. And, you know, just always looking for, you know, some revelations. So, I just want to ask, is it true, Botvinnik once trained by having, playing a match with someone smoking into his face? You know, it's the story, yes.

[00:09:24] It's the Botvinnik, Botvinnik played at a time, you know, just in 30s, 40s and 50s and early 60s, you know, when, you know, the smoking was loud, you know, and this is the audience could get very, you know, excited. It could be a lot of noise. And again, this is part of Botvinnik's, you know, Botvinnik's preparation. He wanted to be prepared for every surprise, not only at the chessboard, but also around the chessboard. And one of the problems was that, you know, his opponent could smoke.

[00:09:52] And he wanted his assistant who worked with him and played his training games, another Grandmaster, not just to smoke, but also have a very loud music.

[00:10:00] So, he wanted to have as much disturbance as possible throughout the training process to make sure that at the crucial moment when you have to make the vital decision that could decide the game or maybe the whole match, he will be well prepared and he will not be, and he will be undeterred. So, it reminds me of things you write about in this book. So, your recent book, Deep Thinking, about the match.

[00:10:29] But really, it reminds me of what you, when you describe the games, you don't just describe the games. You seem to also describe the whole environment around the match. So, what is a computer? How do you play against a computer? But you didn't, that's not the first time you've done that, obviously. Your first world championship match against Karpov was very much, I have to ask about this, you were down, what? 4-0, 5-0. And then you started this ingenious strategy of just drawing every game.

[00:10:58] And what was, how did you consciously shift gears at that point? And you were a young guy, you were 22 years old. How did you consciously shift gears and were you scared of what was going to happen? Like, what was going through your mind? No, it's, you may call it, you know, survival instinct. You know, you start a match, you know, I was actually 21 when I started playing. I was, of course, very arrogant, you know, I believed I had to win. I was, at that time, probably as good as Karpov.

[00:11:24] But being as good as the world champion is not enough because you have to beat the world champion. And I lacked experience of playing the world championship matches. It's a different aura, you know, there's a lot of pressure. So, that's why, you know, early in the match, you know, I played very poorly. When I just looked at the games later, you know, I was horrified by mistakes I made because, let's say game six, you know, I would have probably won the game, you know, finding this winning combination because it was my eyes closed, you know. But at the board, you know, when you have all this pressure, you know,

[00:11:53] and just you look at these options, you know, the clock is ticking, you know. It's, you know, it's mistake after mistake, you know. And Karpov was either very good, you know. So, he was, you know, you may call him like, you know, the cleaner, you know. He just, every mistake, he just grabbed, you know, he grabbed all these chances. I've been throwing them, you know, right, left, and the center. Karpov was very good in picking them up. So, you know, after game nine, it was a 4-0. And I just realized, you know, there's two more bad days, you know, because the match was played until one...

[00:12:25] Until six. So, I mean, what could I do, you know? Just, either, you know, you could just try to rush, you know. Let's die, you know, as a hero, but just, you know, maybe win another game. But I thought, why not, you know, I mean, let Karpov win, you know. Why should I rush, you know? Why should I, you know, open up, you know, when you attack, you know, obviously you offer more opportunities for your opponent to counter punch.

[00:12:48] And also, I could play the match as long as I could by making draws, but also learning because it's a learning exercise. And I thought, well, I'm 21, you know, so even if I lose now, I come back three years later. At that time, the cycle was three years. But I could have this precious experience, but also let, you know, let him win. But that's like an unusual strat in your career at that point. Absolutely unusual. That was like the first time you've ever done that.

[00:13:18] But that's about, you know, that's, you know, that actually what, you know, build my character. So again, all the components were there, but we all need a test, you know, an ultimate test, you know, you're facing, you know, this unsurmountable challenge. And the question is how, the question is how you can meet this challenge and how can you survive, you know, in this impossible situation.

[00:13:47] And it helped me many more times later on because every time I faced a new challenge, every time I thought, you know, it's just, it's impossible to overcome. I said, okay, what could be worse than 5-0? Because if you look at the odds, you know, my odds to win the match, to survive, we were, you know, I don't know, microscopic, you know, this is, this is, it's, it's, it's, against the world champion. Like it wasn't just any player.

[00:14:14] No, 5-0, because eventually Carpenter won one more game. Yeah. And it's, it's, it, it was just, you know, all lost, you know, so it's the, I don't know the odds, you know, one to quadrillion. So, but I, you know, I survived and I, you know, I, I feel during the match that, you know, with every game, you know, I was adding a little bit of confidence, you know, learning. And you could also feel because when you spend so much time with someone, you know, just across the board, you can feel your opponent's reactions. Carpenter was getting nervous.

[00:14:44] You know, it's okay. It was, you know, we started playing in September, by beginning of October, he was 4-0. October ends. November, he eventually, by the end of November, he got to 5-0. But then December, I won one game in January and, and I'm still there. And he's still there and he's getting nervous. And, and the Soviet authorities, they were quite upset because we were. He sort of represented them. Yeah, but it's also, we were playing in one of the, one of the most important halls in the Soviet Union, you know, the halls of Kowal in the center of Moscow.

[00:15:14] And, you know, they didn't expect the match to go for so long because they were, the hall was needed for other, you know, ceremonies. By the way, some of the, you know, some of the members of Octogenetic Politburo, they began to die and they, they, they closed it, you know, once for the Minister of Defense, you know, to be, you know, the ceremony there, you know, when, you know, just when he died. So, and, and, Karpov promised that he would finish the match, you know, next day, next,

[00:15:43] next week, but it went on and on and on. And at the end of January, you know, Karpov lost his patience. He made, you know, just, you know, pushed too hard and I won game two. Then they were kicked out from Hall of Colms, moved to another hotel in the suburbs of Moscow. And then I won game three. So, which was still, you know, 5-3, you know, if you look at the odds, still probably in Karpov's favor. But considering the fact that he couldn't win a game for three months, he was nervous, you know. How many draws in a row were that? Oh, we, 40 draws. That's unbelievable. It's just, you know, we played for six months.

[00:16:11] And I, you know, I, I was quite excited because look, you know, I had a chance, you know, 5-3 is still a long way to go, but I just won, you know, two more games, you know, in, in, it was in one week. And, and Karpov, you know, he looked psychologically exhausted because, you know, just couldn't, he couldn't contemplate, you know, why on earth, you know, he's still there, I'm still there and he couldn't win the match. And then the Soviet authorities decided it's time to actually stop it, you know, and then started again in, in September. It was just a lot of, you know, maneuvering back and forth.

[00:16:39] I think I was on the verge of disqualification for my, you know, for my, um, statements. I was outspoken, criticizing them. But then again, I was lucky. Remember I said I was lucky I was born in the Soviet Union, you know, and I got, you know, all this attention that I needed, you know, as a talented player. But then, uh, it was Gorbachev, Perestroika, you know, so this, and eventually, you know, this is the, the oldest conspiracy just, you know, to defend Karpov out of the chessboard failed.

[00:17:05] And I remember, you know, well, after meeting one of the top authorities, you know, in the Central Committee of Commerce Party, uh, in August, 1985, I came back to our residence in Moscow and mom, mom, great news. Now I can beat Karpov. They let me win the match. So basically said it's, it's, it's, it's not for us to interfere. You play the match, you know, who wins? That's it. You know, that's Sobe. They actually told you that. Yeah. That's, that's no longer, you know, the interest of the, of the, of the, um, Politburo of the

[00:17:35] Communist Party. We are both Soviets. Uh, still, you know, Karpov had a lot of support even in 86 as when we played the rematch in even an 87 because, you know, they had so, you know, um, such a deep rooted support among KGB and Soviet authorities. But, you know, I, I was already a world champion after I won an 85 and I could, you know, um, I mean, I could afford more than was that, that, that, uh, would be allowed for an ordinary Soviet citizen.

[00:18:01] So, so, but, but doing 40 draws in a row against who was then the guy who was then the world champion, that's not an easy thing to do either. Like how do you kind of put yourself into a mindset, okay, I'm just not going to try for it. I'm going to go for a draw. No, but it's, yeah, you play safely. You know, again, it's the, it's something that inside of you, it's either you can do it or you cannot do it, but it's, you have to survive, you know, and trust me when you have to survive, you know, you can discover a lot of, you know, things that you, you, you, you didn't know about yourself.

[00:18:29] So it's just, and I, uh, what did you discover then? I discovered that, you know, I could adjust, you know, this is, that's about, you know, um, um, uh, it's about evolution. You know, it's the, it's, I think people, you know, they, they, they often misunderstand, you know, the, the concept of, of evolution theory. This is not about the strongest species to survive, not the smartest species to survive, but the most adaptable to change. So you have to adapt, you know, there's no other choice, you know, or you die.

[00:18:56] So in this case, you die as a chess player, you know, you will not win the match and then you will be kicked, you know, uh, um, back to the candidate cycle. And of course, if you lose six to nothing, you know, that will be, you know, Embarrassing. Bleeding, bleeding wound, you know, embarrassing. So you have to, you know, defend your chess owner. You have to defend your, your integrity as the, as a, as a great chess player. And, you know, you have to adjust period. And I did it.

[00:19:22] And I, I said, I, I learned a lot about myself and about my ability to adjust. And I also, I would point out that, you know, in two years later, uh, when we played another match, the, the, the, the force match, because I, we were talking about the first one. Then we played the second. I won the second match actually in a last game, game 24, because no more unlimited matches. They, they already limited with 24 games. Um, I was, uh, Carp was trailing me one point 12 to 11, and he had to win the last game.

[00:19:49] And then in case of tie, you know, the world champion, you know, retained the title. And he failed. He lost again. In 87, the roles were reversed. You know, I was trailing because I made a terrible mistake in game 23. I lost it. And I was trailing one point. I had to win the game to retain the title. And I did it. And again, it's the, it was, it was a pure psychology. Carp and Moscow tried to attack, you know, because it's one game he played with white pieces. He had to attack. He tried very hard, but you know, I defended and eventually, you know, counterattacked and won.

[00:20:19] So now I had a totally different strategy. I thought, Oh, maybe my best chance, because it's, it's after 10 weeks of playing, you know, you have one game you have to win, you know, uh, otherwise again, you, you, you, you, you, you lose everything that you gain over these years. What can you do with Carp. So he expects you to rush to attack you. So why don't you play slowly? You know, just, and just keeping, keep, keep, keep going, you know, just, uh, because he's, he wants crisis and you don't give him this, this, this pleasure.

[00:20:46] You know, the crisis is being postponed, protracted, you know, and, and he was looking for some kind of, you know, simplification and he just, you know, he exchanged one piece and positions was getting a little bit worse. So he has been trying to force a draw. It doesn't mean trying to force a win, but he's trying to force a draw, which, you know, all we always make concessions because he just, you're, you're in a rush. And eventually, you know, he, um, he gave me a good winning chance. I missed the chance, but in time trouble, he missed the chance. The game was adjourned and it was a 50, 50 call.

[00:21:14] But again, he failed to defend position, which probably was defendable. But I remember, you know, when, because at that time we had adjourn, adjournments, you know, we, we adjourned the game, we played the next day. I had an end game with one extra pawn, but as I said, you know, it was defendable. And, um, and I remember I was there at stage, you know, a couple of minutes earlier, and then Carpool walked in and I looked at his face and I knew already because we played so many games. And you already look in his eyes that he, he didn't believe he could save the game.

[00:21:42] So just, you know, it's, it's, you know, he was doomed, you know, it was, it was written all over his face. So I always wonder about this in, in every field, like chess, tennis, golf, the difference between number one and let's say number 20 is how much of that is psychology? Because obviously anyone who's 20th in the world is an incredible player in their field. Um, but, but what you described there, you described the whole match in terms of psychology or not the whole thing, but a lot of it. Yeah, but we're talking about psychology of between the two world champions. Right. Of players of the same status.

[00:22:12] Uh, and, uh, you know, there were some great players in, in chess history that were so close, but never made it. But, you know, um, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even have this, this, this, this, this, uh, um, drawing line, you know, between one and 20. I would say it's probably, it could be between one and five. One and five. It's, it's, it's, it's, it seems that it's so close, but now just look at the current, you know, the, uh, ranking in the world of chess is Magnus Carlsen.

[00:22:40] And then you look at, at, at the generation of players that's of his age or older. He's just, he's totally dominant. The only threat comes from, you know, from younger players. So I would say it's, uh, Fabiano Caruana or Wesley Sarr. So this is the two younger players. And it's, and it's, it's still not clear whether they can beat him. I think there's this chance, but you could see that it's this, the world champion is just, it's more than just, you know, it's the first among equals, you know, the, somebody who is there,

[00:23:09] you know, and when there were only 16 world champions, we had the, you know, the, the longest, uh, recorded history of the world. The official title among any other sports since 1886. And there were only 16 world champions that tells you that it's, it's the title is more than just winning one, one match, you know, even one tournament. The title is, is about bringing something new into the game of chess. You can look at every of these world champions. And I wrote about my great predecessors, about 12. Great folks, by the way. Yeah.

[00:23:37] 12 world champions, uh, before me. Um, and I wrote about my, all my matches with Karpov. And I haven't, I haven't written anything about, you know, uh, my, uh, successors, you know, like Vladimir Kramnik, Vichy Anand and Magnus Carlsen. But each of the 16 players brought something unique. It's about, you know, expanding the horizons. It's, it's making game richer.

[00:23:58] And, and by the way, you know, playing very much, you know, um, according to sort of, to, to the, um, sort of cultural, scientific, social demands of the day. When you look at the playing styles of the world champions, you can always find similarities with the, with the most sort of powerful and dominant, uh, uh, uh, trait of the, um, uh, uh, of, um, the modern life.

[00:24:24] Well, well, and, and this will segue into the deep blue versus you, but I remember when you were, when you first became world champion, what you seemed to, the narrative of that story was Karpov sort of, he was very slow positional style. Like you said, he would accumulate small advantages, but it seemed like if he would be compared to kind of the octogenarian, you know, Soviet Union. And there was, there was you kind of fighting, you know, you sort of represented the Gorbachev side.

[00:24:51] Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's separate, you know, political from, you know, uh, political preferences and affiliation with the chess style. Uh, Magnus Carlsen is, you know, he's much closer as a chess player to Anatoly Karpov. So when you look at the style and that's why our cooperation with him was so successful.

[00:25:08] So for Magnus, I spent more than a year with him when he was just, you know, just about to make this sort of the final jump, you know, uh, uh, leap forward, you know, just to, uh, he was number four, five, you know, close just to become number one. And, uh, what helped, you know, um, him and what was, why this cooperation was so productive is that he could learn from a player that had totally different view, uh, of, of, of the game of chess. So just, it's like, I looked from different angle.

[00:25:37] He could learn from, uh, not from Karpov who could be, you know, similar to the way he thought Magnus Carlsen, but from Garry Kasparov who, you know, looked at the position and always had a sort of different idea how you can. Like what's a type of different idea? Like, like broadly. Probably is that, you know, it's, it's in, in most of the positions in chess, you know, it's, you have to make a decision based very much on your preferences. You know, it's, it's not forced win or forced draw. You just have to make a decision and, uh, and it could, you know, change the nature of the position.

[00:26:05] So that's why, you know, if you look at, you know, position from, you know, Karpov eyes, you know, you'll say, okay, maybe I should go for, you know, no risk, but for the tiny, you know, tiny advantage, I could improve my pieces, you know, and then, you know, 10 years later, 10 moves later, uh, uh, in, in, in, in, late middle game or even an end game that could, you know, bring me some considerable advantage.

[00:26:26] Now, if you look from, you know, my perspective, say, okay, uh, maybe I should take a big risk, but maybe I should go with, you know, with, with the, with the big machete, you know, so just attacking immediately. By the way, it doesn't mean that players like Karpov will not attack or I will not look for, you know, small advantages to be accumulated, but it's just, you know, in, in, in, it's, it's in, in the cases where you don't have a clear preference, you know, you go with your sort of natural instincts because you always try to create position.

[00:26:55] And that's, yeah, by the way, it's that what, you know, connects us, you know, to, to, to the computer matches. It's this, it's the, um, the way we play, you know, it's the, um, we always, you know, uh, if you have two top players, two world champions playing each other, the winner will be the player who succeeds in forcing his opponent to play the game, which is, you know, more, more of, of his kind. That's why I lost to Vladimir Krumnik in 2000, year 2000.

[00:27:23] I was as good as Krumnik, you know, in, in, in, in years after, after my defeat, we played, he never won a single game against me. You stayed number one in the world in rankings. Yes, the number one in the world in ranking. But, you know, in the match, you know, I pushed too hard, you know, just, you know, trying to actually, you know, uh, um, refute some of the ideas that Krumnik brought in, by the way, extremely, you know, uh, um, fertile ideas that are now dominating the opening theory, for instance, modern chess. Instead of, you know, just, you know, changing, changing the, the, the gear. So I, Krumnik was more flexible.

[00:27:52] So I was well prepared on 90% of territory, but he found this 10%, you know, little island, you know, and I, you know, okay, you may call it stupidly, but it's probably arrogant. I wanted just to actually, to demonstrate that I could actually beat him at this, at this, you know, tiny piece of territory. Instead of trying to actually drag him into sort of the, um, into the wilds.

[00:28:12] So, so, so this does segue into the Deep Blue match because that was very much a match where Deep Blue, just in its hardware, could outplay you at your, the best version of your game. The tactical side, the fighting side of your game. Like you, you were nervous about getting into a highly tactical affair with it when, even though that was your style. Absolutely. It forced you to play a different style. It's a very, it's a, it's a very important, very important observation.

[00:28:38] So I just, for, for the audience to understand that, you know, uh, I was, you know, I was at disadvantage because my favorite style, you know, was not, you know, the right approach against the computer. So against the computer, you have to play what they call anti-computer chess, which means, you know, being a defensive, you know, actually waiting for machine to attack, to create weakness and then to counterattack. That's not exactly, you know, how Garry Kasparov played his, his best games. But, but before we move into the match, I want to emphasize that the, the book is not just about the match.

[00:29:07] This is the, it's probably, you know, um, it's a hook for the audience, you know, uh, also obviously the publisher will like the idea that the book will be released at the day, uh, the 20th anniversary of the day when the second match was, was, uh, um, uh, open in New York in, in, in 1997. It's May 2nd.

[00:29:25] But, um, you know, um, I wanted also in the book to, um, um, to dismantle the mythology around the man and machine about artificial intelligence, because now all we hear is either some utopian views. Oh, fantastic. You know, it's just, you know, it's, it's all going to be great, but more likely now we hear these dystopian views, you know, which is coming from great minds like, you know, Stephen Hawking or great inventors and doers as Elon Musk. Oh, right. It's almost disturbing what they're saying, but go ahead.

[00:29:55] But exactly. This is, and it's, and it's, it, it, um, uh, it's, it connects to people's minds because of, you know, we're generation of that, that grew up with Terminator. Now the next generation grew up with, was the Matrix. It's all about the horrors of artificial intelligence actually, you know, stealing, you know, everything from us and stealing our world from us. And, um, and I try to also, also to, uh, in the book to, um, to explain the things in a very simple language.

[00:30:21] Because some great books like, you know, Super Intelligence by Nick Bostrom, but they're, they're very sophisticated. So it's very hard to read. So I tried to come up with a story that has a personal, you know, uh, component, big personal component, but also it's in a language where, you know, which helps people to understand. Look, it's not something uncommon. The entire history of human race is inventing machines that are stealing our jobs.

[00:30:44] But for millennials, uh, okay, centuries and last decades, we saw machines, you know, getting more and more intelligent, but still, you know, taking over jobs from, you know, blue collar workers. Now, now they're going after white collar workers and after people, you know, Twitter accounts. So now we say, oh, wow, this is, it threatens the world.

[00:31:02] No, it's, this is the way the, the progress works, you know, machines, you know, getting more intelligent thanks to our, you know, our creativity, which makes us in turn more creative because we have to come up with something new. So it's a new cycle. But because now it's, it attacks, you know, intelligence, you know, like human brains, it seems, oh, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a game changer. No, it is not. It's just, you know, it's, it's like a spiral, you know, it's a, it's the same season, but again, it's on a higher, you know, level of the spiral.

[00:31:34] Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at Alcatcher at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. Look, most of the customer service bots out there are 15 years old. They're horrible.

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[00:33:58] To get a personalized demo and see what Decagon can do for your team. Just get the personalized demo. Just see. Check Decagon out at Decagon.ai.james. That's Decagon.ai.james. A very simple example, and this doesn't involve AI at all, but it does involve automation, is ATM machines.

[00:34:25] Everyone thought bank tellers would go away and bank branches would go away. But in fact, because of ATM machines, it became cheaper to build a new bank branch. So now there's more bank tellers and bank workers than ever. Exactly. This is in the book I talked about, you know, about the elevators, you know. There was a union. 17,000 operators you mentioned. And, you know, but then, you know, people were scared, you know.

[00:34:49] They were scared of, you know, of elevators, automatic elevators that were available, by the way, from the beginning of the 20th century. But people still preferred, you know, someone to operate an elevator, as now they're afraid of driving those cars. Yeah. Then what it took, you know, a strike in New York City, you know. And then, you know, when you have to, you know, go all the way up to the impassated building because of an elevator, you understand. Maybe, you know, you should overcome your fear and push the button, you know. Right.

[00:35:17] So these jobs disappeared. Okay, some of them, you know, in concierge, they're still working, but it's a tiny drop of what it was before. And I think it's, again, this is a normal development of technology. If we have something really breakthrough, something very disruptive, it means it kills jobs before it creates new jobs. But now people are not happy because they want, you know, new jobs to be created, old jobs to be kept.

[00:35:47] Sorry, it's not going to be this way. So that's the way capitalism works, you know. That's the way the free market works, you know. You come up with new disruptive ideas and, you know, you make many industries redundant. So hypothetically, how do you see it play out? But new jobs are being created because they're just – it's a problem who is going to take these new jobs. Right. So let's take self-driving cars as an example. So people theorize it could be up to 90% of the auto industry just completely gone once there's self-driving cars out there.

[00:36:15] How do you see it play out so that eventually those jobs kind of find their homes elsewhere? The answer is I don't know. And that's good news. I don't know. That's the – that means disruptive. That means breakthrough. We all know. It's as if we knew, you know, it would not be – it would not be disruptive. So that means that, you know, we have to get creative. You know, we have so many things that we drop because it's too risky. Maybe we have to start, you know, space exploration.

[00:36:41] Maybe we have to look, you know, underwater, you know, deep water exploration. There's so many things we stopped in 60s and 70s because we said, oh, maybe it's too risky. Maybe we just, you know, we can be happy with, you know, small, you know, incremental improvements. Because when we look at the technology that we're using today, it's – okay, it's very convenient. You know, it's very handy. But iPhone 7 is not Apollo 7.

[00:37:06] You know, it's the – all our devices, they're getting thinner, you know, shinier, lighter. But this is – it's not breakthrough. So we will be facing, you know, the same challenges that people 100 years ago. So when they just saw this – the industrial revolution, you know, changing, changing the face of the world. Well, you can argue the internet, even though it wasn't necessarily a technological huge innovation, it did – it was a social innovation combined with technology.

[00:37:34] By the way, it was – it was – the problem is people believe it was invented in 1989. Though the – So early 70s. No, excuse me, in 60s. It was a part of the DARPA project. And in 1962, Leonard Kleiner came up with, you know, packet switching theory. And in 1963, the scientists of DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency that's working for U.S. government, they came up with a full description of internet, including Skype, voice over IP.

[00:38:02] You know, it was all described by Dr. Joseph Licklider in his – it was in his concept of intergalactic – sick – intergalactic, you know, just to emphasize it, computer network. I like how they think in these science fiction terms back then. But that's – but that's – that's how they made things work. You know, I – you know, I had the privilege of – of – of meeting and then speaking to – to Professor Kleiner Rock.

[00:38:30] And I asked him, how come that you were, you know, you were just not even 30 in 1962. He came up with this, you know, concept of machines talking to – machines, you know, just packet switching. And he said, you know, I was a big fan of Nikola Tesla and I had a dream, he said. I had a dream to make machines talking to each other. That's – you know, that's what we are missing today, you know. That's – that's why, you know, just I want people to – not to be afraid of this progress because there's so many things we can bring back if we start dreaming again.

[00:38:58] By the way, machines cannot dream, even in the sleeping mode. Well, I think that's a big confusion too with AI is that they conflate computer achievements with human intelligence when they're not related at all. Like, again, the way a computer was able to beat you was not by giving it human intelligence but improving the hardware to such a point that it could calculate as fast as potentially you could. Look, okay. It's the – regarding the match in 1997, I always want to emphasize that in 1996 I won the match.

[00:39:28] The first match we played, I won. Then they made a huge improvement. I agree. And I'm very complimentary about the accomplishment. I'm highly critical of the way corporations run the match because IBM was an organizer, you know, the referee just – and obviously, you know, certain things they did during the match, they had, you know, they had an effect, negative effect on Gary Kaspar as a human being, you know, just, you know, because if you are losing self-control, if you are nervous, you know, then you are vulnerable.

[00:39:56] And playing against the machine, you know, if you're vulnerable, you're dead. So, that's every mistake we punished. 20 years later, I spent a lot of time analyzing the games, you know. Now, it's to be objective, you know, that's the – I played the match very poorly, you know, way under my ability to play a match at that time. I was not well prepared. I was wrong in my, you know, anticipation of the blue strengths. I have to admit that they made much bigger progress than I expected. But still, you know, I think that if we played another match, the rubber match, I would have won.

[00:40:27] It doesn't mean that, you know, it could change, you know, sort of the title of history. It was already writing on the wall. So, this is – and by the way, you know, I lost the game one of 1996 match. And we may say that's, you know, that's as important as me losing the match in 1997 because machine could have won, you know, one game. It has won one. And that's enough, you know. Winning one game means eventually it will win, you know, more than one game and it will win the match.

[00:40:54] And in the next few years after 1997, there were other matches. Vladimir Kramnik played. I played other matches. You know, until 2003, 2004, we still could compete with other machines. They were not as powerful as the blue in hardware, but they were far more sophisticated in software. They had just, you know, better and much better engines. But it was like, you know, a competition, a race against time.

[00:41:20] And today, you know, I'm not sure about your phone. Definitely on the iPad. But maybe on your phone, you can have, you know, a chess engine that is as good, even stronger than the blue. Like I have a shredder on my phone? Of course, yeah. That's this – you know, I worked with my assistant and we checked, you know, the blue games on our laptops. And you could see that it's just the machines. They are – I don't know.

[00:41:51] Hundreds, hundreds points of ELO, you know, stronger than the blue. And by the way, there's some mistakes that, you know, that I couldn't even expect, you know. The game five, which is, you know, interesting. It's the – my last chance to win the match was 2-2 and I was pressing hard. Eventually, the blue found like a miraculous way of saving the game. But when you now look at this game with a computer, you just realize that it was full of mistakes from both sides. And deep blue made a mistake in endgame.

[00:42:19] It's what it had, you know, both sides had rook, knight, and four pawns. And instead of forcing a draw, as being shown by every engine today, within a minute, deep blue spent more than a minute and made a move that was losing. So, it means, you know, that any computer today would have just, you know, crashed the blue in this roughly – you know, even endgame, but it's a drawish – in a drawish endgame.

[00:42:46] But it doesn't get – it doesn't change, you know, the – as I said, it's just the importance of the match since, you know, they won. And it's just – yeah, I played poorly. I could have done better. But it was a very important, you know, step forward because it's – it basically – it reached a point, you know, where for Alan Turing and other, you know, giants of the past, the story was over. And we, by the way, discovered that it's not because it's –

[00:43:15] Well, there's always new AI. Right, and there's always new problems. Like 10 years ago, facial recognition was a hard problem. Now, it's done. Like computers could do it. 10 years ago, Go, the game Go was a hard problem. Now, they beat the world's best Go player. Go is this – Go is – I'm not an expert on Go. So, that's why I – you know, you have to be cautious in accepting my – yeah, and any of my statements. Cautious – caution noted. Caution, yes. It's sincere.

[00:43:44] I don't – I don't have rights to speak with the same authority as of the game of chess. But all I know about Go, you know, as the game is so complicated, you know, this – and it's more difficult than chess to be cracked because it's not about calculation. It's more conceptual. But also, the quality of human play in Go is much lower than in chess. I mean, it's much lower than the world champion in chess, you know. It just, you know, plays, again, ideal.

[00:44:12] If we look at ideal moves, he's much closer to ideal game of chess than a Go player because in Go, you can make mistakes, you know, since the game is so complex. And since the game is not as, you know, as steady as the game of the world champion. So, machine, which I think it's not as sophisticated as the chess engines, it still, you know, has an upper hand because machines are always, you know,

[00:44:42] they play sort of the level game. It has, you may call it, steady hand. So, that's why, you know, if you are playing – if your game is uneven, you know, it's ups and downs, you are very vulnerable. I think in Go, you know, the world champion can play and he can keep losing. In chess, I think Magnus Carlsen was white pieces. I think he could make a draw if he wants to. So, it's – But he probably can't win. No, no. Win is almost impossible.

[00:45:10] I think it's just, I would say, 99.9% impossible. Maybe if you give him 10 chances, 10 games, and tell him that it doesn't matter what happens in any game, if he wins the match, if he wants one game, maybe he has a chance. If he plays, you know, with his old fool, you know, rigor, you know, just, you know, and he's not afraid of losing. So, then maybe he has a chance. But there's one thing that, you know, that prevents humans of beating machines in chess.

[00:45:40] It's a level of accuracy that is required to win against a machine. Because even in the best games that we play in chess, you know, when I played with Carpov or Magnus Carlsen plays today with his opponents, you can see the great games, 50 moves, 45, good quality, four great moves. There's always one inaccuracy. I'm not talking about terrible blunder, even about a mistake. It's a little inaccuracy. Which is almost unnoticed for human eye.

[00:46:08] Because, again, it's like, you know, gifts are returned. I make a mistake, you know, and you return the favor. And also, when your position is bad, so very often you're just losing your stamina. So, okay, it's a bad position. So, who cares? How good is your opponent in actually delivering the final blow? Not with a computer. Computer doesn't care if position is winning or losing. It just looks objective at every moment, and it looks for every chance to escape.

[00:46:38] So, that's why one inaccuracy could throw your, you know, 49 good moves, your six hours hard work. And it's, I think that this kind of vigilance is almost impossible for humans. So, that's why winning the game is highly unlikely. Making draws for the world champion in chess, doable. So, you said if, you mentioned one thing though, you said if Magnus Carlsen is not afraid. So, how, at that level, world championship level,

[00:47:08] how do you kind of ominous, I don't want to say hypnotize yourself, but how do you kind of psych yourself up to the right persona when you're at that level of playing? Now, I, yeah, I want to emphasize again that what I said about fear. Because, you know, fear of making mistakes almost guarantees your mistake. Why is that? Because, you know, it paralyzes you.

[00:47:33] It's, you know, if you have to, game of chess is a game of choices. So, you have to make decisions. You know, every move is a decision. Okay, in the openings, you can follow the famous lines. You know, in the end game, you can just follow the sort of the end game manuals. But in the middle of the game, you know, you're on your own. You have to make, you know, choices, sometimes choosing between, you know, roughly even options. And it's always about risk, you know, especially if you want to win the game.

[00:48:03] And making decisions, you know, you have to be confident that your decision is good. And if you fear that your decision is not good, if you fear that, you know, you can lose the game, somehow, subconsciously, it paralyzes you. It just, it inflicts a damage to the decision-making process. So, that's why if you can actually remove the fear, that's why I said, playing machine, say, you play, doesn't matter. You have to win one game. It doesn't matter if you lose nine. But just as long as you win one, you won the match.

[00:48:32] That could actually change the equation because it could, you know, unleash an amazing power that is inside, but it's always being, you know, restrained by our fear. I kind of like this. How can, I almost want to have this just walking outside, you know, out the door and have that kind of power? How do you, how can you kind of hypnotize yourself in daily life to avoid this fear? No, look, I think fear is always with us. This is, it's, I don't believe when some, you know, people say,

[00:49:01] oh, this man, this woman, they don't have fear. We all do have our fears. The question is how we can handle it. I don't have a special advice. So, it's the, I do recognize our fears, you know, especially, you know, you grow up, you have families, you have kids, you know, fear is just, you know, it's a normal element of our life. But when you play, you know, it's the, it's... At that competitive level. It's a competitive level. That's why it's impossible to play chess at my age,

[00:49:30] competitive level now, because, you know, you have so many other things, you know, that, you know, your concentration are the same, you have other problems, you have fears, you know, normally, because you grow up, you know, you have other responsibilities in your life. Well, let's talk about that. You also recently wrote an excellent book, Winter is Coming, and it's about Putin and Russia. You've been outspoken as a kind of a, I don't know how you describe it, an activist Democrat in Russia against Putin and his policies and many other things about how Russia is won.

[00:49:59] You even tentatively ran for president of Russia shortly after you retired from chess. So, you know, is this more a part of your daily life now? No, my daily life, you know, is comprised of different components. So, it's writing on my social about politics, but other things as well. So, also writing books. It's also, you know, quite a significant chess component,

[00:50:29] because I keep building, you know, and spreading around the world, Casper Chess Foundation. It's the 15th anniversary that we started the first one in the United States. And I can proudly say that now the U.S. junior team under 18 is the best in the world. Surprise, surprise. It's just, you know, you keep working with these people. There's plenty of talent. And you just find this talent. And if you, you know, invest your time and resources, so you actually reach results similar to what was in the Soviet Union

[00:50:58] 40, 50 years ago. And we have other foundations in Africa, in Europe, in Asia, in Mexico. Now we just opened one in Paris, in Francophonie. And, you know, that takes time, you know. So, I'm trying to actually, you know, build my legacy in the world of chess, you know, bringing chess to education, but also creating a new rating system and a network of competitions, bringing sponsors. So, I'm not actively engaged as a chess player, but I think, you know, I have certain responsibilities of making it work. What do you think,

[00:51:25] how does chess and education in general benefit kids? Because it seems like there's many benefits. What do you see as... I think it's one of the best tools to enhance the modern educational system because, you know, we live at a time when it's much less relevant what you teach kids rather than how you do it. Because, you know, if we agree that education is about, you know, preparing our kids for the future life, you know, this is...

[00:51:55] And at age, you know, eight, nine, ten, and as teenagers, they have to learn something that will be useful for their lives. Now, how can we be sure that what they're learning today will be relevant? Because most of the professions and new professions that they will be seeking 15 years from now don't exist. And by the way, we even don't know what would be, you know, what would be the most... What would be at the demand, you know, 15 years from now since many of the best paid jobs today didn't exist 15 years ago.

[00:52:25] It's so true. Just the other day, I saw a job, a help wanted ad for a self-driving car engineer. Like five years ago, that would have been a science fiction job. But what about these 3D printers, you know? These social media managers. Again, most of these sort of exist, these exciting jobs today, they, you know, they were products of 21st century. So we should just, you know, realize that it's very important to actually make kids, you know, adjustable to these new challenges.

[00:52:53] So it's all about algorithms, about patterns, recognizing patterns, seeing the big picture. And chess is perfect. You know, it's all about your learning how the move that you make on the queen side could affect, you know, something that happens on the king side. And also, it just, you know, it's the best training for cognitive skills. It's, you know, it's a very general thing that, you know, helps them to absorb this information and, you know, build these patterns and bridges, connect things. It's about connectivity. So,

[00:53:22] and one more advantage, it's inexpensive. You don't have to build a swimming pool, a soccer field, you know, a tennis court. It's, you know, it's a part of the classroom and it could be connected to computers. So it's, it's an ideal tool and we have been very successful promoting it, you know, in the most advanced schools in this country or in Europe and in the most sort of desolated areas in Africa. So, it seems also there's kind of the meta aspects of learning

[00:53:52] something like chess, like there's a discipline, like how, when you were young, how many hours a day did you study specifically chess? No, but discipline, of course, again, it's a hard work, but we don't, it's, you know, this is, we're already probably moving to the semi-professional side of that, but if you talk about a social effect, you know, I can tell you that in places, you know, as I mentioned in Africa, you know, you can see the drop of the absentee rate because kids are excited, you know, they go to school, there's something, exactly, they play. So it's, it has a social effect. Also,

[00:54:22] you know, in many places, it's, again, in this country or in other, you know, parts of the developed world, it's hard to imagine that before you actually start teaching kids whether it's in Africa or in many parts of Asia or Latin America, especially in Africa where we had plenty of experience because that's one of the most, you know, successful foundations, Gasparovic's foundations. And I personally traveled across the continent, I visited 22 African countries

[00:54:51] and I know we just did it's first time experience. You have to convince these kids that education has a value because here, you know, it's this, the kid goes to school because his father, his mother, they went to school. They are, you know, mothers and fathers went to school. So this is, you have already generations that, you know, that know the school is a part of the, of the, of the routine. Now, you are talking to people that, you know, that never had education as a part of the, of their life, you know,

[00:55:21] so it's the, most of the parents of these kids, you know, they never attended schools and, you know, they, God knows if they can, you know, they know how to write. So you just have to convince these kids that education has a value for them. So that's why anything that makes them excited is very important. You have to drag them in. So you have to explain very simple things, you know, like up and down, right and left, you know, concept of center. So many things that we can do with chess, you know, as the, as it's a good, you know, it's, it's a colorful way of, you know,

[00:55:50] entering the educational system. And then again, God knows what happens, but it's very important that they, they have an appetite to actually become educated. So, so, you know, there's, there's also the aspect of having a coach or a teacher. So again, in education, there's, there's a teacher and you mentioned the effect you had on Magnus Carlsen. You mentioned Bodvinnik's effect on you. What's the role of, like, if you never had a coach like Bodvinnik or if Carlsen never had a coach like you, is there a cap? Like, does everybody,

[00:56:20] to reach their potential, do people need a mentor or a coach? We're talking about professional chess now. We're talking about professional, but in any area, really. Yeah, but in any area, to reach your potential, you know, you need your mentor. So that's, it goes with all sake, even at the age, at the digital age, you know, though of course we have to admit that today, you know, a young player can learn, you know, more about, more than Bobby Fischer ever knew about chess, you know, in a year or two by just, you know,

[00:56:49] working with computer and with this very average assistant. But in order to reach your potential, especially if we're talking about, you know, someone like Magnus Carlsen, who is, you know, destined to go to the very top, you need help, you know, like, stuff from generation to generation. That's what I learned from Botvinik, you know, this, it's the way, you know, he looked at the position, the way, you know, he analyzed it. So, it helps. It's a very general advice. It sounds, you know, trivial, it's an advice. But, you know,

[00:57:18] there's always, a piece of wisdom. And it helped me that I worked with Botvinik, but I also, you know, was close to other great champions as Boris Spassky, Antigran Petrosyan, and I learned. And now, you know, I've been doing it for years, you know, I think it's also my duty, you know, just to pass this information, to pass this knowledge, this wisdom from those, you know, the giants of the past, you know, by my great predecessors to those that are now, you know, just trying to conquer

[00:57:47] the highest peaks of the chess world. So, you know, just to close this off, I want to mention on the political side, you know, this morning, obviously, even though this podcast is going to come out, you know, a few weeks later, this morning, there was an explosion or maybe two explosions in St. Petersburg. You came in here, you were getting texts about it. What's just your, you know, given your stance on Putin, how does this fit into

[00:58:16] your stance on what's going on in Russia right now? Look, what we're seeing in Russia now is this, you know, Putin is desperate to stay in power. He knows that, you know, he can't leave Kremlin and retire. So, there's too much blood on his hands, too much money has been stolen. So, he's the dictator for life. I've been warning for years, for more than a decade, that eventually Putin will be everybody's problem because when dictator runs out of enemies inside his own country, he goes elsewhere. And that's what Putin did, you know.

[00:58:46] Now, to stay in power in Russia, he needs to keep, you know, the Russian population in fear of problems that could, you know, jeopardize their lives for them not to realize that he is, you know, the main problem that is preventing them of getting decent lives. And Putin made, Putin has made confrontation with the free world, especially with the United States, as a core element of his domestic propaganda. And for those who believe that, you know,

[00:59:15] if you make enough concessions to dictator, you know, he'll leave you alone. No, he will go everywhere. He will keep creating new hotspots on the map, new problems, you know, after Ukraine, he went to Syria, now he's most likely to Libya. He has been interfering in elections across Europe and, of course, in this country because confrontation is what helps him, you know, just to create chaos. And chaos is very important for dictator because he hates united opposition. He hates, you know, strong organization, like NATO, European Union.

[00:59:45] He wants to divide, which is, again, it's as old as this world, you know, divide and conquer. And he's very good. He's a KGB guy. He's not a military dictator. He's a KGB guy, you know, creating, you know, chaos, creating instability, creating suspicion, you know, blackmailing, bribing. He has enormous amount of money at his disposal, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars that he could, you know, channel one way or another. And he's not shy of buying favors and for politicians, for business people. You know,

[01:00:14] we heard already comments that if you try to, you know, undo, you know, Russian malicious influence in the financial system in the West, it could, you know, it could kill all the markets because there's so much money that is just, you know, in different places that, you know, help Putin to promote his clandestine agenda. And, and of course, we know that KGB, you know, from 50s and 60s helped different terrorist organizations. Using terror

[01:00:44] was very much a sort of KGB signature to, to promote, propone their Soviet agenda at that time. and Putin still has an answer to the very, you know, serious accusations of apartment bombing in Russia in 1999 when, you know, he started Second Chechen War and it paved his way to power. So, it created Putin, Putin the fighter of terror, against terror. Putin,

[01:01:13] Putin the saver of Russia from the Islamic radicals. And all the terrorist attacks we had, you know, from 99 to 2004, what was left at that time of Russian independent media reported that you could see KGB traces there. So, you could see the connections. So, there's this people who were involved. They somehow, you know, worked, worked either with KGB or, or,

[01:01:43] or had these connections. And as for the explosion in St. Petersburg today, as we're recording it, look, it's a moment where Putin needed some kind of destruction. Again, I believe in presumption of innocence, though, of course, in case of Putin, you know, as many dictators, you know, I think it's, it works the other way. So, it's the, the benefit of the doubt, you know, goes against him. But Putin, first, first time in many, many years, faced a massive

[01:02:12] demonstrations in Russia that involved the new generation. And I think that was a shock for him, you know, with tens of thousands of Russians marching in the streets. And some people say, you know, what is a tens of tens of thousands? It's a lot because it's not something that, you know, you could do, you know, without any harm for you. So, here you can have, a million people marching and police protects you. In Russia, you go on the street, police is against you. So, that's the, or you've even been in the streets. I've been arrested, beaten, you know, spent days in jail. So, but at that time, you know,

[01:02:42] that was, it was an easy going time, quote, unquote, because I could spend five or ten days in jail. Today, for the same, quote, unquote, crime, just for what they call disturbing public order, you can spend five or ten years in jail. So, in ten years, you could see, you know, what has happened in Putin's Russia. So, that's why I think that it's the, we can suspect that this attack in St. Petersburg was another product of KGB because, you know, it helps Putin to promote his agenda in Russia.

[01:03:12] I believe, you know, soon we'll see sort of new draconian laws, you know, just limiting what's left of freedom, individual freedom. I think that they will, they will impose new security measures. Also, I think it will help Donald Trump here to sort of, to brush off the Kremlin gate to all these accusations and to start talking again about cooperation with Russia against radical Islamic terrorism.

[01:03:42] Again, we don't have any proofs and I'm afraid that we'll not find the truth about Putin's crimes as long as he stays in power. So, we'll not find out who actually ordered the murder of Boris Nemtsov, my late friend and colleague and ally, one of the most prominent and brave Russian politicians who was murdered two years ago in front of Kremlin's gates. But, Do you ever get worried you're gonna,

[01:04:12] I live in New York. I mean, it was not my first choice but for, it's four years, four years since I left, I left Russia. I live in New York with my family and, you know, people keep asking me, you know, can you go back to Russia? My answer is, yes, I can go back to Russia but it'll be a one-way trip. Right. So, okay, Deep Thinking by Garry Kasparov, great book about artificial intelligence plus your personal stories. And it's how to overcome your fear about artificial intelligence. You know, this is just,

[01:04:42] you have to treat, we have to treat human progress as something inevitable. You know, when, if it's raining, you know, you can complain about it or you can buy an umbrella. You know, it's not a one-dimensional story. This is not, you know, this is nothing linear. You know, this is not, you know, that, oh, you know, I read the book, I read this article and I know everything. This is, again, this is, it's more, it's more psychological. So, this is all about us, you know, again, fear, you know, even if it may threaten us directly or indirectly, you know, maybe we can lose a job

[01:05:12] or maybe we'll, we're not sure, you know, how we can, you know, advance in some of our endeavors. Look, you know, there's always ways, you know, so it's the... What's a technique for thinking about how to adapt? Because obviously you've been doing it, but the average person who is scared, what do they, what do they do? Look, I, again, it's the, it's, it's, I know the, and I actually mentioned in the book, the, the, the thought that, you know, that is, even if I lose as an individual, you know, the human race wins, you know,

[01:05:44] as a whole entity. I mean, it's, it's, it doesn't warm you up. Right. I understand it. But, you know, we are, we all benefit from progress because, you know, we have all these devices, you know, in our pockets or in our purses, you know, that helps us to, you know, to learn more about the world. You know, just think for a moment that we have so much power, you know, in our hands, you know, in just, keeping in handy in our palm, it's, it's thousand times more than the United States

[01:06:14] had at a time when, NASA had when America's land on the moon. So, with so much power, something can be done. You know, this is, I don't know exactly what you can do, but there's a lot you can do because there's so much power is given to the individual and it's very important that we are not, you know, wasting these opportunities. We're not complaining. You know, we just, you know, we should be optimistic and we should always overcome our fears. Great. Well, thank you once again, Gary, for coming in. Deep Thinking by Gary Kasparov. It was a great book and also was a big reminder

[01:06:44] for me because I just remember being in the audience watching and I, and again, I remember 1989 when Peng Shu was building the predecessor to Deep Blue. I was there. It's mentioned in the book also, you know. Deep Thought, 1989, I remember it well. So, thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you.

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