An Analysis Of Edgar Allen Poes Maelzels Chess Player

In 1836, Edgar Allen Poe wrote an essay entitled, â€Å"Maelzel s Chess-Player† in The Southern Literary Messenger. The topic of the essay was about a chess-playing machine. The machine consisted of a cabinet of tightly packed machinery. Over the top of the cabinet was a chessboard whose pieces were moved by a mechanical human figure whose arm made the movements. Poe argued that the machine was a fraud and that there was a man inside the cabinet making the moves. Turns out, he was right. His thesis was that in principle no machine could ever play chess. He argued that they could perform mathematical calculations but that there is an unbridgeable gap between playing chess and performing calculations. Computers follow a fixed mathematical or algebraic series. Even though there are typically 30 moves that could be made during any given turn, a computer necessarily follows one. A human doesn t proceed by logical necessity; a human chooses their moves. On May 11, 1977, Deep Blue, a n IBM computer, defeated Garry Kasparov, the world champion, in a six game match. Speaking of one of the moves made by Deep Blue, Kasparov said, â€Å"it was a wonderful and extremely human move. . . . I had played a lot of computers but I had never experienced anything like this. I could feel—I could smell—a new kind of intelligence across the table. Introduction of Topic: Today I will discuss with you functionalist philosophy in relation to artificial intelligence, what it meant in the past, what it means