On the Impact of Information Technologies on Society: an Historical Perspective through the Game of Chess

Abstract

Les rapports de recherche du LIG - ISSN: 2105-0422 ; The game of chess as always been viewed as an iconic representation of intellectual prowess. Since the very begining of computer science, the challenge of being able to program a computer to play chess, and to beat humans, has been alive and has been used both as a mark to measure hardware/software progresses and as an ongoing programming challenge leading to numerous discoveries. In the early days of computer science it was an affair of specialists. But as computers were democratized, and the strength of chess engines started to increase, chess players started to appropriate to themselves these new tools. We show how these interactions between the world of chess and information technologies have been herald of broader social impacts of information technologies. The game of chess,and more broadly the world of chess (chess players, litterature, computer softwares and website dedicated to chess, etc.), turns out to be a surprisingly and particularly sharp indicator of the changes induced in our every day life by the information technologies. Moreover in the same way that chess is a modelization of war that captures the raw features of strategic thinking, chess world can be seen as small society making the study of the information technologies impact easier to analyse and to grasp.