The Final Game

Against an advanced chess-playing computer

It was ten minutes before the start of the final game of the World Chess Championship.

A reporter thrust the mike in Yakov Eisenberger’s face. “As the current world chess champion trying to keep the title, how do you feel about playing against Fianchetto, the most advanced chess-playing computer in the world?”

“I am relaxed. Of course, I never expected to play against Fianchetto in the final, but I have prepared well. I know how Fianchetto plays, and I made some adjustments to my style of playing.”

The reporter turned to Morris Johnson. “As the creator of Fianchetto, you must be proud of it beating sixty-five players to reach the final. Tell us about the improvements you made in the way Fianchetto plays.”

“We didn’t make any changes to the playing logic. Fianchetto will play its natural game. But we made it a lot more human in the way it approaches the game. It can now read books and browse websites on its own and learn how to win in not only chess but in general any game. It can even engage in chat conversations with experts. It’s been doing all that for the last three weeks as a way of preparing for this final. We let it do whatever it wanted to do to win the final game.”

Two minutes before the game began, Yakov checked his phone one last time before turning it over to the officials.

There was only one message in the last ten minutes. It was from Fianchetto. It simply said: We’ll pay you ten million dollars if you can throw this game.

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