13.'Let's Live with Them', an inspiring speech by Garry Kasparov

 

Let's Live with Them is an inspiring speech by Garry Kasparov, the former World Chess Champion. In this speech, he talks about his experience of playing chess against computers and explains why humans should work with machines instead of fearing them.

Kasparov begins by describing how, in 1985, he became the World Chess Champion at the age of twenty-two. During that time, computers were not very powerful, and he could easily defeat many chess-playing machines. However, technology improved rapidly over the years. In 1996 and 1997, he played two famous matches against IBM's supercomputer, Deep Blue. He won the first match but lost the second. This made Deep Blue the first computer to defeat a world chess champion in a competitive match.

Many people saw this event as a victory of machines over humans. Kasparov explains that society often talks about a "war" between humans and technology. People fear that machines will replace workers, take away jobs, and become more powerful than humans. Stories and movies such as The Terminator and The Matrix have strengthened these fears.

However, Kasparov does not agree with this view. He points out that every machine is created by human beings. Deep Blue's victory was not just the victory of a machine but also the achievement of the scientists and engineers who designed and programmed it. Therefore, a machine's success should also be seen as a human success.

Kasparov admits that losing to Deep Blue was a difficult experience. The computer did not show emotions, fear, or nervousness like a human opponent. It simply calculated millions of possible moves every second. Yet, he realized that although the machine could play excellent chess, it did not truly understand the game. It had no imagination, feelings, creativity, or purpose.

After this experience, Kasparov started thinking differently about technology. Instead of asking whether humans could defeat machines, he asked whether humans and machines could work together. This idea led him to create Advanced Chess, where a human player and a computer work as a team.

The results were surprising. In one tournament, the winners were not world champions or supercomputers. They were ordinary players who knew how to use computers effectively. This showed that a human being working with a machine could achieve better results than either one working alone.

Kasparov then explains that human-machine cooperation is already part of our daily lives. People use translation apps, navigation systems, search engines, and many other digital tools. These technologies help us perform tasks more quickly and efficiently. Therefore, the future is not about humans fighting machines but about humans using machines to improve their abilities.

He also argues that technological progress cannot be stopped. Machines may take over some jobs, but they will also create new opportunities. Instead of fearing change, people should learn new skills and adapt to new technologies. In the end, Kasparov emphasizes that machines can calculate, store information, and follow instructions, but only humans can understand, imagine, create, love, and dream. He believes that technology should be used as a tool to help humanity achieve greater goals. Through his experience with Deep Blue, he concludes that machines are not our enemies but our partners. While machines can process information faster than humans, only human beings can dream, innovate, and give meaning to the future. Therefore, the best future is one in which humans and machines work together to turn our greatest dreams into reality.