![]() |
Science Fiction
Dictionary Latest By
"The thing that I'm most interested in at the moment is the so-called Infinite Energy solution - the possibility of finding new ways of tapping into virtually limitless sources of energy."
|
![]() |
![]() This famous story was written by Ambrose Bierce in 1910. In it, you encounter the first chess playing automaton - a fully automated chess machine. You also first encounter the problems that humans have when they face superior machines.
Read it if you like; Moxon's Master is available on the web (in the public domain).
![]() (1938 reprint of 'Moxon's Master' by Ambrose Bierce via SFFAudio) Compare to the robotic chess expert from First He Died (Time and Again) (1951), by Clifford Simak. This is the first reference that I know of for the idea that machines are unbeatable by humans at chess. This story may have been inspired by Wolfgang von Kempelen's remarkable mechanical chess player, which was created in 1770. Incredibly, it beat a number of chess experts in public matches. However, the real genius behind the automaton chess player was an assistant concealed inside the cabinet. The first references to chess-playing computers by scientists were made by Konrad Zuse in the early 1940's and by Alan Turing in 1945. Zuse reputedly wrote a chess program in the early 1940's using PlanKalkuel, the first high-level computer language (also created by Zuse). Claude Shannon described in 1949 how to program a computer for chess, proposing basic strategies for limiting the number of possibilities to be considered ("trimming the tree"). Turing wrote a computer chess program in 1950 (Turing was a relatively weak player); this was the same year that he proposed what came to be known as the Turing Test for machine intelligence. Dietrich Prinz wrote a chess-playing program for a general purpose computer (the Manchester Ferranti) in 1951. Computer chess was implemented on the Univac MANIAC I computer (80K storage, 2400 vacuum tubes, using a six-by-six chessboard and limited players (no bishops). The 11Khz processor (11,000 operations-per-second) took 12 minutes to search 4 moves deep. The first chess program with a complete board and set of pieces was written in 1957 by Alex Bernstein at MIT on an IBM 704 (a 47Khz processor looked 4 moves deep in 8 minutes). Read more at Computer chess history. Compare to robotic chess expert from First He Died (Time and Again) (1951) by Clifford Simak. Comment/Join this discussion ( 2 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This | Additional
resources: Automaton Chessplayer-related
news articles:
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
|
![]() |
Science Fiction
Timeline
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
|
![]() |
![]() |
Home | Glossary
| Science Fiction Timeline | Category | New | Contact
Us | FAQ | Advertise | ![]() Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™ Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved. |
![]() |