“Did you drink all the whiskey?” — what the luminaries of the world of chess programs were talking about or how ECAI-2024 went

Three planes, more than 12 hours on the road – and we are in Santiago de Compostela. Here is an outstanding scientist and director of science Smart Engines Vladimir Lvovich Arlazarov was invited to give a short report on how Kaissa was created. Do you want to know what else was interesting at the largest European AI conference and what does whiskey have to do with it? Look under the cut!

Back in the spring Vladimir Lvovich Arlazarov – an outstanding scientist, a pioneer in the field of AI, the author of the chess program “Kaissa”, Doctor of Technical Sciences, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor, and, of course, director of science for Smart Engines (yes, we will never get tired of listing all his credentials) – received letter. In it Jonathan Schaeffera game theory researcher and author of the program for playing English checkers, Chinook, announced his intention to hold a meeting of developers of chess programs participating in the first world championships. This meeting was planned to be held as part of the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (ECAI) and to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the very first championship. “Promised to be Monty Newborn, David Levy, Tony Marsland”Schaeffer wrote.

– What is it, then, and Monty will come? We haven't seen each other for twenty years. Ha, he also came to Russia several times, spoke a little Russian, we showed him Zagorsk (now Sergiev Posad), — Vladimir Lvovich took out a stack of photographs from the box. — And it was he who invited us to the wedding; however, we couldn’t go there then.

Vladimir Lvovich took out another photograph – a group of people on Republic Square in Yerevan.

– Here we are again with Monty, this is him with his wife and daughter, and on the left is Tony Marsland.

– And this is Tony visiting me, next to me, unfortunately, is the now deceased Misha Donskoy.

ony Marsland, Monty Newborn (family) and Misha Donskoy in Moscow.— Of course we're going! — Vladimir Lvovich concluded without a grain of doubt. “I think we’ve all changed a lot since then, maybe we don’t even recognize each other right away.” Well, nothing! We have to go.

An exhibition center in a small town was chosen as the site Santiago de Compostelalocated in northern Spain. Interestingly, the 2020 European Conference on Artificial Intelligence was supposed to be held here, in the capital of Galicia, but then, due to the pandemic, the event was moved online.

Gathering in Spain outstanding scientists of respectable age, and even living in different parts of the world, is quite a challenge. Nevertheless, almost everyone made it to Santiago de Compostela, albeit not without incident. So, Vladimir Lvovich and I spent a total of about 12 hours on the road and after two transfers – in Moroccan Casablanca and Madrid – we finally reached our destination.

– Are you tired? – we asked 85-year-old Vladimir Lvovich on the way to the hotel.

– From what? – he laughed. — I sat the whole way, why should I be tired?

Well, he’s probably a little disingenuous, we thought. No! We realized how wrong we were when the next day – while we woke up around noon and were preparing to crawl out for breakfast – Vladimir Lvovich had already managed to visit the Cathedral of St. James and walk around the entire historical center of the city. Well, how can I not remember “there were people in our time… a mighty, dashing tribe, heroes…” Lermontov 🙂

Celebrating the past. Inspiring the future – this was the motto of the current AI conference. It turned out that honoring the developers who took part in the creation of the first chess programs is indeed one of the most important parts of the program.

As soon as we entered the building, we saw dozens of chess tables and an interesting poster –”World Computer Chess Championship: 1974-2024. The longest running experiment in Computing Science history”. On it is the date of the first Stockholm championship and the photograph that became its calling card – Mikhail Donskoy, sitting at the chessboard, talking on the phone to Moscow.

And below is a mention of the current, already 28th championship and a graph of how the ratings of chess programs have grown since the 60s. Interestingly, today it is 3.400-3.600. For comparison: the current rating of the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen – 2830.

We went into the hall where computer chess legends had already begun to gather. The line-up of participants actually looked impressive:

• 1974, Stockholm – Vladimir Lvovich Arlazarov (“Kaissa”)

• 1977, Toronto – Tom Truscott (Duchess)

• 1980, Linz – Don Beal (Beal, BCP, Delicate Brute, ClikChess);

• 1983, New York – Monty Newborn (Ostrich)

• 1986, Cologne – Richard Lang (Chess Genius, Mephisto)

• 1989, Edmonton – Tony Marsland (Awit)

• 1992, Madrid – Johannes de Koning (RISC 2500)

And also the already mentioned David Levy, Deep Blue developers Feng Sun Xu and Murray Campbell and many, many others.

“Vladik, Vladimir! Pri-i-ive-et! Good!”– we heard Monty Newborn call out to Vladimir Lvovich. They hugged tightly, after which Monty took a stack of photographs from his bag and began to show them. Monty gave one of the photographs – Vladimir Lvovich in it from the 70s – as a gift. In response, we presented him with a badge that we made for the 50th anniversary of Kaissa.

David Levy also joined in and began the conversation with the question:

– Vladimir, tell me, did you drink all the whiskey? Or is there still some left?

– Oh, we drank it for a very, very long time.

After that, both burst out laughing – and only a few understood the reason. David Levy was a famous bettor. So, in 1974, he bet with Soviet scientists that within a year they could create a program capable of playing the endgame Rook and Pawn against Rook. Moreover, they will make it so that the computer will play absolutely correctly in any position.

If David Levy won, he received twelve bottles of vodka; if Soviet scientists won, they received exactly the same number of bottles of Scotch whiskey. I think you already understand how the dispute ended and who won.

“We should have argued for money”“,” someone nearby exclaimed.

The hall was full; there were many people who wanted to see and hear living legends. Jonathan Schaeffer began to introduce the guests one by one, and as soon as he named the next participant, the hall exploded with applause.

All guests very soon had to present their short reports. Of course, everyone quickly forgot about timing – and this may have been for the best.

Vladimir Lvovich was one of the first to make a report. We will not once again tell the story of the appearance of “Kaissa” – we have already written many texts about this with the participation of Vladimir Lvovich.

But we note that Vladimir Lvovich tried to mention everyone thanks to whom “Kaissa” ultimately appeared – Alexander Kronrod, Alexander Brudno (his son Alexey came to the conference), Anatoly Uskov, Georgy Adelson-Velsky, Alexander Bitman, A. Zhivotovsky, of course , Mikhail Donskoy, as well as many, many others.

We will still quote one phrase from the speech—probably the most important one.

“In the early stages, no amount of competition could extinguish the spirit of cooperation and exchange of ideas. Then we were colleagues and friends with many computer chess developers from all over the world. Then it was more of a scientific exchange than a direct competition. Everyone who worked then enjoyed exchanging stories about algorithms, how it was all done. The event itself then, it seems, was almost for the last time of a scientific nature, and not, as it later became, a scientific competition.”said Vladimir Lvovich.

Afterwards, participants from later championships spoke, joked, and told stories.

Feng Song Xiu, the creator of Deep Blue, with particular pride cited a quote from Garry Kasparov (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation, included in the list of terrorists and extremists) that the program did not cheat.

At the banquet, new heroes were honored – the developers who won the last championship among chess programs. “Kaissa” played weakly by human standards, and the current programs have long since surpassed the grandmaster mark and are now hovering at the level of 3500. Vladimir Lvovich and other bison of the world of chess programs were asked to sign books, which were then handed to the developers.

This World Cup, as it turned out, will be final.

“We must admit that today chess has fallen out of the sphere of artificial intelligence. It's time to put an end to this matter. Today's programs are about the same level. They play 30 games in a draw, then one of them wins, but this no longer arouses any interest,” noted Vladimir Lvovich.

And then with a mysterious look he added: “However, it’s still impossible to say that the machine plays perfectly – we don’t know that. I fully admit that a genius may be born who can beat the machine. Or perhaps he already lives among us.”