Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine - The Fallacy of an Old Theme

The following review was originally published on cinekklesia on July 13, 2005.

With new discoveries regarding our neurological makeup hitting the news constantly, perhaps the "Man vs. Machine" theme will fade into a quaint obscurity, replaced by the debate over whether Man is a machine. However, in the meantime, we remain fixated with the tools and toys that we have created, constantly fretting over whether we are going to "lose control" of our machines, whether they will come to surpass (and dominate) us.

Vikram Jayanti's Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003) touches upon this fear, among other themes. Documenting the second contest between Garry Kasparov, commonly regarded as the greatest chess player ever, and Deep Blue, IBM's attempt at building a computer that could not just compete, but win, at the highest levels of competitive chess, Jayanti takes us on a fascinating, behind-the-scenes tour of the emotional tumult, egos, and conspiracy theories surrounding this legendary showdown.

While Kasparov handily won his first match against Deep Blue in 1996, his second performance in 1997 proved less-than-stellar: He lost 3.5 to 2.5 in six games. Not only was Kasparov crushed after his defeat, but during the match, he suffered from extreme stress and perhaps paranoia. For instance, he and his supporters were convinced that IBM hired operatives to spy on Kasparov's hotel room from the windows of adjacent buildings. In addition, during the film, we join Kasparov on a tour of the hotel where the contest took place, winding down hidden corridors and back rooms where IBM reportedly prevented outsider access (what corporate shenanigans did transpire in those back rooms?). Finally, in a brash move after his second-game loss to Deep Blue, Kasparov publicly implied that the IBM team was cheating, arguing that there was a major difference between how Deep Blue played between the first and second game: in the former, it played like a machine, while in the latter, it played differently...like, well, a human. Did an IBM programmer intervene during Game 2?

It appears that Jayanti wants us to believe that something sneaky was afoot, since he stacks up a long list of circumstantial evidence against IBM. Besides noting the aforementioned accusations, the documentary crew interviews a reporter who says that he was forcibly detained by IBM after word got out about Kasparov's accusatory implications; they talk with Kasparov's publicist, who flatly stats that IBM was playing games of psychological warfare against the world champion; and they point out how IBM stopped all work on Deep Blue after it beat Kasparov (and after IBM's stock subsequently climbed 15 percent), implying that the computer giant had no intellectual interest in the project but rather, was concerned solely with PR.

While Jayanti puts forward a plausible hypothesis (or conspiracy theory, depending on your preference), he lacks the hard evidence to make any of the accusations stick. I certainly can believe that a large institution, such as IBM, would be willing and able to play dirty tricks in order to achieve its ends; however, fairness and civility dictate that I consider it innocent until proven otherwise. Lacking hard evidence, Jayanti should have taken his documentary on a new path, asking more intriguing questions: Even if IBM could prove conclusively that it did not cheat, would that matter? Was Kasparov ever playing "just" a machine?

Kasparov had bet his reputation on the fact that he could beat a cold, soulless computer, an entity which could "just" run millions of calculations per second, but which could not analyze a game as a conceptual, even abstract, whole. His frustration stemmed from the fact that the Deep Blue of the second game seemed to have a human-like command of its moves; it seemed to operate at a more "intelligent" level, beyond that of mere calculation. He knew that he would look bad losing to the machine that he so despised, and his frustration was compounded by his suspicions that he really was losing to a conniving programmer. It's one thing to be humiliated; it's quite another to be humiliated by duplicitous means that only you can see.

At this point, the narrative falls apart because in reality, Kasparov never played against a Machine. During the course of Game Over, we learn that not only did the Deep Blue team include a bunch of computer scientists but also chess grand masters, who served as consultants to IBM. Deep Blue was not some random object, arising ex nihilo to challenge Kasparov; it was the product of years of human effort. Kasparov wasn't playing against a machine so much as a cadre of his colleagues, armed with lots of computer power and programming know-how.

Thus, Game Over is another example of the problems associated with the "Man vs. Machine" theme. Such a theme creates an unnecessary, even irrational, fear of our devices, electronic or otherwise. Almost inevitably, every round of technological innovation brings with it public hand-wringing and apocalyptic cries from Neo-Luddites and Chicken Littles. While such alarmism often is proven unwarranted, its continual resurgence serves as a constant distraction from both innovation itself and the real source of our discontent: other people.

If the old slogan, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people," holds any water, then certainly machines don't beat chess grand masters...other grand masters do. When we place the focus of our fears on machines, we give those machines too much moral agency and inadvertently release humans from their responsibility. The idea that technology is basically neutral, that our use of technology is what counts, may have become a cliché by now, but I have yet to come across a scenario that contradicts it. Technology is no panacea, but neither is it an uncontrollable monster.

At the end of the day, Kasparov wasn't beaten by a random "machine." He was beaten by many people with years of education, millions of dollars, and hours of time to devote to his humiliation. The real source of our anxiety does not stem from our tools, but sadly, from our fellow human beings.

SLC Punk! - A Call to Positive Apathy

The following review was originally published on cinekklesia on July 6, 2005.

When I was in college, I became a Christian social anarchist. What did that mean? Well, as a Christian, I followed Jesus. As an anarchist, I believed the best system of government was none at all. As a social anarchist, I also was opposed to capitalism. Essentially, this meant that my only real option in life was to move to a commune.

Now that I'm older, I remain a Christian, but I have eschewed anarchism for the milder libertarianism. My switch stems partially from anarchism's failure to address the problem of violence: how to deal with the fact that people kill each other over land, money, pride, etc. In short, anarchism fails to deal with my fear of my neighbor. While Jean Jacques Rousseau, a prototypical anarchist of sorts, would respond that humans are actually intrinsically good and peaceful in the "state of nature" (social institutions are what make them corrupt), his views ultimately prove unsatisfying because they are so empirically off-base; besides, I can't reconcile them with Genesis 3.

Thus, I am left with libertarianism: a system that seeks to maximize personal liberty within limited constraints (a minimal national defense and a minimal judicial system). I opt for John Locke's prescription to the problem of violence, which itself was a rebuttal to Thomas Hobbes' asinine alternative of monarchy. Have I sold out? Now that I believe in some system of government, and now that I have become a capitalist pig, am I philosophically soiled?

James Merendino's SLC Punk! (1998) wrestles with this very question. Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and Bob (Michael Goorjian) are two punk rockin' anarchists who (ironically) just graduated from college and are spending an entire year doing nothing but getting high, going to parties, and beating up rednecks. Living in a conservative era (Ronald Reagan's America, circa 1985) and in a very conservative part of the country (Salt Lake City), they struggle with and relish their status as outcasts. Stevo also has to deal with the fact that he's smart, comes from a rich family, and just got accepted into Harvard Law. (His father, an alumnus of said school, submitted the application for him, knowing full well that his son would never sell out so quickly and crassly.)

About two-thirds of the way through the film, we see Stevo suffering from a philosophical crisis, stemming from several sources. First, he cannot reconcile his hatred of the state with his getting into fist fights with rednecks and other nemeses; after all, does not his violent behavior merely mimic the violence of the state? Second, he recognizes that despite his surface-level nihilism, he actually wants some order in his life, as is demonstrated when he catches his girlfriend sleeping with another man; even though they have an "agreement" that they can see other people, he clearly does not like the lack of commitment...which is why he proceeds to punch the stuffing out of the offending third party. Third, he doesn't want to end up completely destitute, which is what he fears will happen if he doesn't find some type of job or (gasp!) career. Finally, a young woman named Brandy (Summer Phoenix) eventually asks Stevo an obvious question: if he's such a rebel, then why does he spend so much money on blue hair dye? Why does he spend so much time dressing the part of the "punk"? Is he not a mere stereotype, a cardboard cutout? Does not true rebellion and individualism reside internally, in what (and how) one thinks?

Brandy's probing questions get to the heart of the matter. Both true individualism and moral steadfastness do not reside in our critiques of the shallow choices that others make with their lives (after all, let's face it: we all sell out), nor do they depend on outward poses, sartorial or otherwise. Rather, they are honed internally, as one struggles with his/her Maker to lead a life free from worldly materialism, shallow pursuits, and empty visions of happiness. Namely, they are honed in a spirit of positive apathy.

Contrary to its "negative" and oft-derided counterpart, positive apathy is not a totalizing state of mind; it does not require that we care about nothing at all. Rather, it encourages a healthy apathy towards circumstances that we cannot change and towards people who have made, perhaps, superficial, materialist choices in their lives. Thus, during the course of the movie, Stevo slowly learns to relax, recognizing that the "revolution" is not imminent and that he and his countercultural friends really aren't going to change anything. He also learns to be a little less judgmental about the life choices that others make, even if he finds those choices morally questionable; in short, he learns that healthy social interaction involves more than moral grandstanding.

This does not mean that Stevo "sells out" (you'll have to watch SLC Punk! to make up your own mind regarding his decisions at the end), nor is "selling out" the prescriptive message we are to glean from this movie. One still can lead a "pure" life (e.g., by following Jesus' instructions to the rich young man) and remain conscious (and critical) of the impurity of the world. However, we should not kid ourselves into thinking that our attempts at social change and reform have any intrinsic worth or permanence. (The Kingdom may have entered the world as we know it, but It does not stop here.) Nor do we have a right to pass judgment on others whose life choices are shallow and worldly; such judgments serve only to produce an attitude of self-righteous anger and frustration.

So, did I sell out when I made the switch from anarchism to libertarianism? Sure: If we all sell out at some point, then I certainly am not immune to such pressures. If I had remained an anarchist, would I have made more of a "difference" in this world? Probably not. Am I leading a perfectly "pure" life now? Far from it. Should I nevertheless keep trying? Absolutely. Will my current life make much of a difference in the world? Not really. Do I see others making life choices that I find morally questionable? All the time. Should that make me upset? Not really: After all, who am I to judge (c.f., Mt. 7:1-5)? This, in a nutshell, is the attitude of positive apathy; this is the message of SLC Punk!.

The Joys of Notepad

I recently came across a fascinating bit of online activism and promotion, the Made with Notepad Campaign. (Be sure to check out the hysterical Product Info & Free Download!) A valiant effort by one David Rothschild, this campaign aims to encourage the use of ultra-simple text editors, like Microsoft's Notepad, in the creation of Web sites. Complicated Web authoring programs (e.g., FrontPage) are often accused of adding extraneous code that disrupts a programmer's original intent (not to mention a browser's ability to load a page quickly).

I applaud Rothschild's principled stand for both simplicity and computer literacy (after all, using Notepad requires one to learn the HTML behind a Web site). In fact, I wish more of our computerized world followed Notepad's example, opting for the simplicity of text-based interaction over the seductive—though wasteful—call of image-, audio-, and video-based interaction. (Of course, by posting this message on my pre-programmed Blogger space, I merely am demonstrating my hypocrisy. Just because I like the idea of Notepad doesn't that mean that I always follow through!)