The Historical Development of Computer Chess and its Impact on Artificial Intelligence

In this paper we review the historical developmentof computerchess and discuss its impactonthe conceptof intelligence. Withthe adventof electronic computersafter the Second WorldWar, interest in computerchess was stimulated by the seminal papers of Shannon (1950)andTuring(1953).Theinfluential paper of Shannonintroducedthe classificationof chess playingprogramsinto either typeA(brute force) or type B(selective). Turing’s paper (1953) highlighted the importanceof only evaluating ’dead positions’ whichhave no outstanding captures. Thebrute force searchmethodis the most popular approachto solving the chess problem today. Search enhancements and pruningtechniquesdevelopedsincethat era have ensuredthe continuingpopularityof the type A method.Alpha-betapruningremainsa standard technique. Other important developmentsare surveyed. A popular benchmark test for determiningintelligenceis the Turingtest. In the case of a computerprogramplaying chess the movesare generatedalgorithmicallyusing...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1997
• Where: AAAI
• Authors: David Heath, Derek Allum
• Keywords: AAAI 1997, Historical Developmentof Computerchess, Impactonthe Conceptof Intelligence, Intelligent Agents, Shannonintroducedthe Classificationof Chess