Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently said that he mostly stopped playing chess as a child after realizing that computers would one day easily defeat human players. The tech billionaire was responding to a post by American businessman Marc Andreessen who wrote: “Chess is more popular and a bigger industry now than ever.” Andreessen's post highlights chess's resurgence, contradicting fears of AI-driven obsolescence, with global participation hitting 605 million players in 2022 per FIDE’s data, a 30% rise since 2012, fueled by online platforms like Chess.com during the COVID-19 pandemic.
To this, Elon Musk replied “True, to my surprise. I mostly stopped playing chess as a kid when I realized that it would be trivial in the future to write a chess (low DoF game) program that could beat all humans.”
In this context, “low DoF” refers to “low degrees of freedom,” meaning the game has a limited set of possible moves and outcomes, making it easier for a computer to master through programming.
In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue made history by defeating world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match, becoming the first computer to beat a reigning world chess champion under standard tournament conditions.
Since then, chess engines have only become more powerful. Modern AI systems like Stockfish and Google’s AlphaZero can calculate millions of positions per second, easily outperforming even the strongest human players. AlphaZero, developed by DeepMind (a Google-owned company), learned the game from scratch using reinforcement learning and went on to beat top engines using unconventional and creative strategies — a milestone in AI development.
Despite AI dominance in the game, chess has seen a global resurgence thanks to online platforms, live-streamed tournaments, and popular culture moments like Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. Musk acknowledged this rise in popularity but maintained that the game’s eventual solvability by machines made it less appealing to him.
To this, Elon Musk replied “True, to my surprise. I mostly stopped playing chess as a kid when I realized that it would be trivial in the future to write a chess (low DoF game) program that could beat all humans.”
In this context, “low DoF” refers to “low degrees of freedom,” meaning the game has a limited set of possible moves and outcomes, making it easier for a computer to master through programming.
In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue made history by defeating world champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game match, becoming the first computer to beat a reigning world chess champion under standard tournament conditions.
Since then, chess engines have only become more powerful. Modern AI systems like Stockfish and Google’s AlphaZero can calculate millions of positions per second, easily outperforming even the strongest human players. AlphaZero, developed by DeepMind (a Google-owned company), learned the game from scratch using reinforcement learning and went on to beat top engines using unconventional and creative strategies — a milestone in AI development.
Despite AI dominance in the game, chess has seen a global resurgence thanks to online platforms, live-streamed tournaments, and popular culture moments like Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit. Musk acknowledged this rise in popularity but maintained that the game’s eventual solvability by machines made it less appealing to him.
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