Maine Film Center Waterville, ME
Dr. Clare Bates Congdon
Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Science, Bowdoin College
Computer Chess— A.I. and Gaming
Program Description
A discussion of artificial intelligence and gaming and how gaming has evolved from the earliest days of computer chess. Part of the 2016 National Evening of Science on Screen.
Presented At
Maine Film Center Waterville, ME
Film Synopsis
A 1980s-set story centered around a man-versus-machine chess tournament.
Set in the early 1980s, in and around an isolated roadside hotel, computer programmers gather for a tournament that pits their chess programs against each other. The action is centered on the junior programmer of an academic team who begins to suspect that their computer is able to detect the difference between a computer opponent and a human one, and thus is exhibiting elements of self-consciousness. He also learns from another member of the team that the computer had been engaging him in gnomic philosophical dialogue and hinting that it thinks it’s alive.
About the Speaker
Dr. Clare Bates Congdon is a visiting associate professor of computer science at Bowdoin College. Her research interests include artificial intelligence, machine learning and data mining, evolutionary computation, and complex adaptive systems. She received a BA in mathematics from Wesleyan University and an MS and PhD in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan.