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IBM's Deep Blue conquered Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov on 11th May, 1997 - in a man v machine clash Newsweek brazenly baptised \u2018The Brain\u2019s Last Stand\u2019.\nDespite the incredible achievement of having created a program able to calculate 200 billion positions in three minutes, the IBM engineers were advised by their PR team not to look too happy at the press conference afterwards, so as to avoid Kasparov - who had initially hinted at foul play behind the scenes - from gaining sympathy.\xa0\nIn this episode, Arion, Olly and Rebecca explore whether American viewers felt more affinity with the Russian player or the American corporation; question whether machine learning ruined competitive chess forever; and reveal how even this computerised contest came down to psychological tactics\u2026\nFurther Reading:\n\u2022 \u2018Deep Blue computer beats world chess champion\u2019 (The Guardian, 1996): https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/12/deep-blue-computer-beats-kasparov-chess-1996\n\u2022 \u2018Twenty years on from Deep Blue vs Kasparov: how a chess match started the big data revolution\u2019 (The Conversation, 2017): https://theconversation.com/twenty-years-on-from-deep-blue-vs-kasparov-how-a-chess-match-started-the-big-data-revolution-76882\n\u2022 \u2018Deep Blue vs Kasparov: How a computer beat best chess player in the world\u2019 (BBC News, 2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF6sLCeBj0s\nFor bonus material and to support the show, visit\xa0Patreon.com/Retrospectors\nWe'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts:\xa0podfollow.com/Retrospectors\nThe Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.\nTheme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Alexa Weissman.\nCopyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2022.\n Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices