The Levy Bet — End of an Era

Abstract

In August 1968—I attended a conference on Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University’s Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception. At a cocktail party one evening during the conference, I happened to be playing a friendly game of chess with John McCarthy, a professor of Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University and one of the world’s leading authorities in his field. I won the game, and he remarked that although he was not strong enough for me, he thought that within ten years there would be a computer program that could beat me. You can imagine my reaction. I was the reigning Scottish Chess Champion at the time, and here was this inexpert player telling me that in only a few years I would succumb to a computer program! I said something roughly equivalent to (but more polite than) “put your money where your mouth is,” and I offered to bet Professor McCarthy £500 (then worth $1,250) that he was wrong. Our host for the evening, Professor Donald Michie, who was sitting on the floor only a couple of feet away, joined in our debate and agreed to take half of the bet, McCarthy taking the other half.