Marketing 5.0

CHAPTER 11Augmented Marketing: Delivering Tech-Empowered Human Interaction

One of the major headlines in the late 1990s was the chess games between IBM's Deep Blue and Grandmaster Garry Kasparov as the quintessential man-versus-machine matchup. In 1997, the supercomputer eventually became the first machine to beat a reigning world champion in a chess game. Although a year prior, Kasparov had won the first match, the defeat became all the buzz in the chess world and beyond.

Many experts attributed the win as a sign of the machine's superior intelligence. Deep Blue could process 200 million positions per second at the time, much faster than any human could. Kasparov himself admitted his uncertainty about Deep Blue's capability during the game. With a human opponent, it was more predictable as he could read their facial expression and body language.

In the aftermath, many chess players, including Kasparov, were curious whether they could augment their playing ability with a computer on their side. It led to a form of competition known as the advanced or freestyle chess, in which human players can consult with machines before deciding their every move. A breakthrough insight was revealed in 2005, where in a tournament with grandmasters and supercomputers participating, the winner turned out to be two amateur chess players, Steven Cramton and Zackary Stephen, assisted by three regular computers (Team ZackS).

Leading to the final, several grandmasters with help from computers had ...