Twenty-five years ago, the world reacted in shock along with its greatest chess player, Garry Kasparov, when the computer IBM Deep Blue beat him at his own game.
The Russian grandmaster and former world champion admits that at the time he was a sore loser, upset about the loss. He was critical of the way IBM organized the match, which Deep Blue won in three games and drew in one. He also felt humans were doomed when it came to playing games against machines.
A lot has changed since then.
After Deep Blue's victory in 1997, IBM started looking for another challenge and developed Watson, named after company founder Thomas J. Watson. That's the group I worked with back in the days of the original team, and then building out the Watson ecosystem.
Watson was publicly unveiled in 2011 when it went up against the two greatest champions on the U.S. game show Jeopardy, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. The machine won, with both champions finishing well back.
Like the great player he is, seeing several moves ahead, Kasparov knew that when it came to humans versus machines, the game was lost. As he told Business Insider in 2017, Deep Blue was weak by modern standards, while today's machines are far more powerful. A chess app on a smartphone now would throttle Deep Blue.
His point about collaboration is key. Kasparov had realized we need not fear the machine, and I've pointed out many times all the good AI systems can do for humanity. That shift toward collaboration reflects a broader movement toward human-centered AI strategy, where technology serves as a partner that amplifies human creativity and responsibility rather than replacing it.
The real threat is not the machines themselves. As Kasparov put it, AI is like a mirror that amplifies both the good and the bad in us. The danger is humans using AI or other technologies to harm other humans.
Kasparov has distinguished between brute-force machines that resemble how humans make decisions and more human-like machines. He noted that the founding figures of computer science, like Alan Turing and Norbert Wiener, believed the real breakthrough would come from the latter.
After his defeat, Kasparov developed the concept of advanced chess: a human and a computer playing against another human and computer. Speaking in London in 2019, he explained that computers provide the answers, but it is up to humans to set the questions. Intelligent systems offer powerful support, but ultimate judgment and creativity remain firmly in human hands.
And when it comes to humans, there is no match for our creativity, ingenuity, and humor. The satirical site The Onion marked the 25th anniversary of Kasparov versus Deep Blue with a tongue-in-cheek piece imagining him racking up wins against a robot vacuum, then eyeing a rematch with a kitchen mixer. A fitting reminder that the human sense of play is one thing the machines still cannot touch.
This is only a preview.
The deeper insights, including how AI reshapes education, finance, leadership, cybersecurity, and communication, are inside Neil's Substack, where policymakers, founders, and Fortune 500 leaders get strategies they won't find anywhere else.
Read Disrupting the Box on Substack
Neil Sahota
IBM Master Inventor, United Nations AI Advisor, and author of the bestseller Own the AI Revolution. Neil helps leaders turn AI from experimentation into measurable business value.