20 years ago, in May 1997, the world watched as Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess player in the world, was defeated for the first time by the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue. He talks to the Hay Festival President about a watershed moment in the history of technology: machine intelligence had arrived at the point where it could best human intellect. It wasnt a coincidence that Kasparov became the symbol of mans fight against the machines. Chess has long been the fulcrum in development of machine intelligence; the hoax automaton The Turk in the 18th century and Alan Turings first chess program in 1952 were two early examples of the quest for machines to think like humans a talent we measured by their ability to beat their creators at chess. As the pre-eminent chessmaster of the 80s and 90s, it was Kasparovs blessing and his curse to play against each generations strongest computer champions, contributing to their development and advancing the field.

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