Chess and 18th Century artificial intelligence (2013)

An 18th Century automaton that could beat human chess opponents seemingly marked the arrival of artificial intelligence. The solution to the problem of consciousness will involve, so to speak, sliding sleds and hidden chess players. Though some sought a beautiful solution when a cynical one was called for, plenty of people - Edgar Allen Poe, for instance - realised that the Turk had to be, must be, a cabinet with a chess player inside. What seems to have stumped these people was not the ugliness of the solution, but the singularity of the implied chess player. It turns out that the chess players who operated the Turk from inside were just chess players, an ever-changing sequence of strong but not star players, who needed the work badly enough to be willing to spend a week or a month inside its smoky innards. Maelzel picked up chess players on the run, wherever he happened to be, as Chuck Berry used to hire back-up bands on the road. So the inventor's real genius was not to build a chess-playing machine. My own son, who was once a decent chess player, now plays guitar and very well indeed.