Chinook Conquers Checkers Today, Mankind Tomorrow

OK, that's it. We're doomed. Prepare for assimilation. Chinook, a computer at the University of Alberta in Canada, has solved checkers.

Checkers (or Draughts in Britain) has enthralled children and adults alike since the 16th century. While the rules are simple, there are 500 quintillion possible board positions. That's 500 billion billion (500,000,000,000,000,000,000). This staggering number put the mastery of checkers out of the reach of computers for a long time, but not anymore thanks to Chinook.

Chinook was programmed by Jonathan Schaeffer starting in 1989. In 1990, it competed in the U.S. championship and finished second to world champion Marion Tinsley, although their four games with each other were draws. In 1992, Tinsley beat Chinook 4 to 2 with 33 draws. In their 1994 rematch, Tinsley had to forfeit for health reasons after six draws, and died of pancreatic cancer seven months later. Chinook was then able to easily defeat all living human players, but doubts of its invincibility remained because of its unfinished business with Tinsley.

Now Schaeffer and his colleagues have finally finished their work, and Chinook has been proven to be unbeatable. No matter what its opponent does, Chinook will never lose. The best anyone can hope for is a draw. This makes checkers the most complicated game that has ever been solved. It's literally a million times more complicated than Connect Four. If Chinook is unbeatable at checkers, what else can it eventually do? How about falsify your criminal record, hack into your bank account, or imprison you with your home's security system?

Anyone can play a game against Chinook from the comfort of their home. My match against him at the novice level ended with him cowardly freezing up my computer. Chinook proclaimed to be winning, although I was about to get a king (he already had one).

This may show that Chinook is learning some strategies that used to be uniquely human, like creating a diversion when things aren't going exactly your way. Combine human instinct with the calculations of a machine, and you have Smith from The Matrix. Not the agent who was based on a world built on rules, but the true Smith, the unplugged version who had the vision and power to bend the rules of the Matrix at will. Mark my words, this is the beginning of the end. Checkers, anyone?