1 Family Photo:
Computer Chess

I thought chess would become less popular once computers solved it. Why play when computers already know all the moves?

You can take this to nihilistic extremes. Why write when AI can draft a better essay? Why climb a mountain when a drone can race to the top? Why go to the moon? Instead of planting a flag, a robot could have just speared the moon with a javelin as it orbited by.

But I was wrong: computers solved chess and chess is more popular than ever. Computers made chess accessible to regular people. Computers can evaluate complex chess positions and score who's winning, making chess a spectator sport. Pre-computer chess was like watching football without yardline markings. Now the gridiron has advanced analytics.

We're in a chess renaissance.

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My parenting philosophy is that I'm not interested in forcing my kids to do anything they're not interested in...with the exception of taking a bath.

I am interested in exposing my kids to a wide range of things they might be interested in. And also in presenting useful things to them in ways that might pique their interests.

I think playing chess is a useful thing. There's value in playing games. There's value in learning to win and lose. And in learning to win and lose well. There's value in learning strategy and thinking about tactics. There's value in learning to access the deep concentration required to play chess at a high level—though ultimately all these skills are probably best applied to domains other than playing chess at a high level.

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We have chessboards and chess pieces. I've gotten them out a few times, but Calvin and Lawrence haven't been to interested in them yet. There's a chess set on a table at the public library where Lawrence likes knocking the pieces onto the floor, but that's not the interest I'm hoping to inspire.

Last week, Calvin woke up early and I needed to do a quiet activity with him while the rest of the house slept. I took him into my office and we played chess on my computer. Specifically, we played pawn chess. Each side has a row of pawns and the goal is to get one of your pawns to the other side of the board.

Calvin liked it.

I liked it too.

Computer chess is more accessible than physical chess. I showed Calvin how to click on his piece, then the computer showed him whether he could move it one or two spaces forward. The computer showed him when his piece was blocked. The computer showed him how to attack diagonally. It was a pleasant teaching dynamic of us working with the computer instead of me policing the rules against Calvin: "No, you can't do that.", "No, that's not a legal move.", "No, that's my piece.", "No, put that back."

A while back, a chess-playing friend of mine recommended I look into Story Time Chess. It makes physical chess more accessible to children. I haven't ordered it yet, but might soon. We'll see if it piques their interests.

1 Dad Joke:
Human Chess

Why was the chess piece unhappy?​
It felt like it was just a pawn in someone else's game.

*image by Dad[AI]Base​

Highlights:
Computer-Human Chess

​What Chess Competitions Taught Me About Startups by Bill Mei​

The single biggest thing I did to improve my chess game as a beginner was to read chess books. This helped me go from beginner to intermediate in a relatively short time. But once I became an intermediate player, I benefitted more from observing analysis and commentary of professional players, and getting coached on the strengths and weaknesses of my own play. However, there is only one way to go from intermediate to advanced: play many, many games against other people who are slightly better than you are. You can’t rely on other people’s advice forever and if you want to truly excel at the game you have to discard some of the advice and create your own strategies.

​What are humans still good for? The turning point in Freestyle chess may be approaching by Tyler Cowen (2013)​

​Tyler Cowen AMA on Progress Forum​

​The Most Popular Chess Streamer on Twitch by Jacob Sweet​

​Ronen V on Twitter​

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​Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories​

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iamJoshKnox Highlight:

Can you do me a favor?

If you have time, I'm working on a couple essay drafts and I'd love your feedback:

​4 Running Lies I Was Told in PE​

Reflections on running and a family running event from last month. This is mostly polished up, but would like to make sure the writing is clear. Is there anything you think I should expand on?

​imAGIne futures​

This is more of a doodle right now...trying to think about how AI will change the future. I need to flesh out the subsections, but I find myself losing interest in this project at times. I don't know what I'm trying to turn it into. Is this interesting? Do you have other thoughts about domains that will be reshaped by AI?
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Want to Chat?

...or play a game of chess?

Grab some time on my calendar and share a story this week:

​Let's Chat!​

Book some time even if you don't know what you want to talk about:
​https://calendly.com/iamjoshknox​

Until next week,
​iamJoshKnox​​

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