The magazine MAQ September 2018 MAQ Magazine November 2018 | Page 165

MAQ/November 2018 / 07

The question of whether computers can be creative – and what that means – is becoming more pertinent as they grow more powerful. No one would ever accuse chess-playing computer Deep Blue of inspiration, but it didn't need to be inspired to

beat world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997 – it just had to win. When a Google AI beat the world's best Go player in 2016 – a board game too complex to crack using Deep Blue's crude computational approach – it produced moves lauded for their

breathtaking originality. But similarly, it used a structured approach to suggest them.

Gary Kasparov, left, gives up in defeat

against IBM’s chess playing computer,

Deep Blue,

at the conclusion of the sixth game

of their rematch in May 1997.