Deeper Blue not as good as Kasparov yet, admits IBM parallel chief (250)

Despite the much publicised victory of the Deeper Blue computer over chess supremo Gary Kasparov, a key figure behind the IBM system has admitted machines are not yet equal to humans at the game.

Dan Frye, programme manager of the parallel software development division at the IBM RS/6000 group, based in Poughkepsie, New York, confessed last night that his technology was not up to the standard of Kasparov, even though Kasparov did make some mistakes when losing to the computer.

He said that the IBM programmers competing against Kasparov were guided by a US chess grand master, who tried to give them a broad strategy to compete with the world king of the board game.

He said: ?Deeper Blue cannot yet beat Kasparov at the moment. In 18 months? time it will be able to beat him consistently.?

Frye rubbished the claims made in many column inches that a computer could ever be more intelligent than a human being.

Asked about draughts - called checkers in the US - he admitted that the game depended more on experience than chess does and is less predictable. ?Checkers depends on past experience while chess is computable.?

Frye denied that IBM had cheated at the chess challenge, even though it had used a US grand master to help its programmers.

Last year Silicon Graphics admitted defeat against a checkers grand master, saying it was impossible to beat him.