EurekAlert: AI may mistake chess discussions as racist talk. “‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ the recent TV mini-series about a chess master, may have stirred increased interest in chess, but a word to the wise: social media talk about game-piece colors could lead to misunderstandings, at least for hate-speech detection software.”
New York Times: Chess (Yes, Chess) Is Now a Streaming Obsession. “The coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders have crowned a host of unlikely winners catering to bored audiences. But watching livestreams of chess games? Could one of the world’s oldest and most cerebral games really rebrand itself as a lively enough pastime to capture the interest of the masses on Twitch? Turns out, it already has.”
US Chess Federation: US Chess Digital Archive is Live. “The digital archive includes all Chess Life / Chess Review / Chess Life & Review issues in fully searchable PDF format, save a rolling ‘paywall’ of the most current 12 months of Chess Life, which are only available to US Chess members. Each month, a new PDF will be added to the public archive. This archive is available to the general public at no charge as part of our non-profit educational mission to empower people, enrich lives, and enhance communities through chess.”
MIT Technology Review: Instead of practicing, this AI mastered chess by reading about it. “Chess fans love nothing more than discussing a masterful sacrifice by Bobby Fischer or an ingenious line of attack from current world champion Magnus Carlsen. It turns out that this chatter could help AI programs learn to play the game in a new way. One day, the same technique could allow machines to use the emotional content of our language to master various practical tasks.”
The Verge: DeepMind’s AI became a superhuman chess player in a few hours, just for fun. “The end-game for Google’s AI subsidiary DeepMind was never beating people at board games. It’s always been about creating something akin to a combustion engine for intelligence — a generic thinking machine that can be applied to a broad range of challenges. The company is still a long way off achieving this goal, but new research published by its scientists this week suggests they’re at least headed down the right path.”
The Next Web: Twitter games are the best use of the new 280 character limit. “Some genius Twitter users are already using the expanded 280 character limit on Twitter in the best way: by playing games using emoji. Bryan Menegus of Gizmodo and Jack Crosbie played what might be one of the first full games of chess entirely on Twitter (Menegus won with a checkmate). The grid and pieces were represented by Unicode characters roughly analogous to a grid board.”
Huh. Did you know you can play chess via Facebook Messenger?. (Obviously it won’t be encrypted chess….) “Unfortunately, the board is not drag-and-drop; instead, you need to send text commands to move your pieces across the board, with the board refreshing as a new static image after each move. “
