MANIAC, the first computer to beat a human at chess and started the “machine age”

The computing It has reached levels that were unimaginable at the beginning. The artificial intelligence, with new conversational platforms, such as ChatGPT, has opened a fascinating field of exploration with unsuspected possibilities. However, from the beginning the intention was always the same: to imitate the human mind and even surpass it.

Reaching the power of modern computers and software that we have today was a continuous journey marked by some milestones. One of the most important was the appearance of MANIAC (Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator, and Computer), one of the first computers built under the direction of Nicholas Metropolis at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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In a recent article in “The Conversation”, it is explained how Benjamin Labatut, in his book “MANIAC”, investigates the mutual influence of AI and the human mind. In this way, Labatut presents the computer as a machine capable of making any calculation unimaginable for humans. In fact, the computer is presented as a tool more powerful than the human mind, capable of achieving gadgets that would rival even the most versed.

The truth is that if we put MANIAC to compete with a team from 2024, it would be nothing more than a simple computational toy. So what was so special about MANIAC?

The MANIAC arithmetic unit was nearing completion in 1952. (Los Alamos National Laboratory/)

Revolutionary architecture

MANIAC was neither the first nor the most powerful computer, however, it earned a special place in the history of computing thanks to a great contribution: its design.

As was common at the time, this was a one-of-a-kind machine, not compatible with other computers of the time. In addition, it had a memory capacity of 1024 40-bit words, a speed of 10,000 operations per second and used punched cards for data input and output.

The team was built in 1952, but its operating bases were created years before, in 1945.. This is Princeton architecture, also called Von Neumann architecture in recognition of its creator.

This architecture provided a novelty that until now had not been implemented in its predecessors. At that time the few computers that existed needed manual changes to receive new instructions. They were very large machines full of cables and site plugs. Each new order required moving all those circuits, a process that could take weeks.

To change instructions in MANIAC, however, punched cards could be used with the new orders, which were inserted into the machine. In this way, the programmer could write the instructions on the punched cards. Several programs could even be run on the same day and thus speed up processes considerably.

First chess victory against a human being

In 1956, MANIAC achieved another notable record by inscribing its name in computing history by beating a person in a game of chess.

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Its creators, the Los Alamos scientists, tested the limits of the machine three times. First, they made her play a game of chess against herself. Then, there was a second game against the Princeton University physicist-mathematician Marin Kruskal, who also played quite well. The third time was the charm: he played against an anonymous person who received like a week-long course on how to play chess.

It may seem like a small thing, even worse if we take into account that a simplified version of the game was played, in which there were no bishops, and that the machine took 20 minutes to decide its moves. It was, however, the beginning of a career that would conclude 41 years later with the defeat of Garry Kasparov, world champion Russian-Croatian master, at the hands of Deep BlueIBM’s supercomputer, in 1997.

The Russian Garri Kasparov was the best chess player in the world in the mid-eighties and the beginning of the new century. However, he faced off against Deep Blue, a supercomputer made by the American company IBM, to hold chess games against him. (Photo: Getty images)

Following this event, machines have been outperforming humans in a variety of strategy games. In 2016, for example, the Chinese Fan Hui, three-time world champion in GO, lost to AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence developed by Google’s DeepMind.

Poker has not been free from the “skills” of computers either. In 2017, Libratus software, developed by Carnegie Mellon University, defeated four professional players in a Texas NO-limit Hold’em Heads up game.

In 2019, Google again, this time with its AI AlphaStar, embarked on the complex mission of defeating professional players of Starcraft II, a highly complex strategy video game. The human players were confident of surpassing the machine, but found themselves in five consecutive losses.

A “war machine”

Returning to MANIAC, the computer was not built with the goal of beating its opponents at chess, its goal was less peaceful. The main purpose of the machine was to carry out the calculations required for the construction of the H-bomb, the nuclear fusion bomb, 600 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima and which required much more complex processes.

It was thanks to its ease of being reprogrammed that it was used for different types of tasks such as those already mentioned or, among others, obtaining the first weather prediction that took less than 24 hours to generate, as well as the first equation of state calculated with methods of Monte Carlo simulation.

For all this, MANIAC has been considered the precursor of artificial intelligence. Although today, a smartphone is surely more interesting, in its time, the machine opened the way for all modern computer technology to develop.

Source: Elcomercio