TED2017: “Machines have objectivity, humans have passion”

As people worry about the growing power of computers, the first soldier in the human-machine battle is here with a reassuring message: “This is excellent, excellent news,” said Garry Kasparov, regarded by many as the greatest chess player in history.

In 1997, Kasparov very memorably lost a match to IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue. (“Nobody remembers that I won the first match,” Kasparov wryly pointed out.) “When I sat down at the chess board across from Deep Blue, I immediately sensed something new, something unsettling,” he recalled. “I couldn’t be sure what it was capable of. I couldn’t help wondering, Was it invincible? Was my beloved game of chess over? These were human doubts and human fears — and the only thing I knew for sure was Deep Blue had no such worries at all.”

Instead of worrying about what our machines can do, he believes humans should worry about what they still cannot do. So we must set aside their anxieties, concentrating on “more difficult, more uncertain challenges” to conquer and devising solutions to them enabled and empowered by technology.

More important, if machines replace us at tasks they can do better and faster, it gives us the opportunity to focus on what makes us human. He explained, “Machines have calculations; humans have understanding. Machines have instructions; we have purpose. Machines have objectivity; we have passion.” He added, “We will need intelligent machines to help us turn our grandest dreams into reality.”

Kasparov concluded, “If we fail, it will not be because our machines were too intelligent or not intelligent enough. If we fail, it’s because we grew complacent and limited our ambition. There’s one thing only humans can do, and that’s dream — so let us dream big.”