David Levy

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David Levy^[1]

David Neil Lawrence Levy, (born 1945 in London)
a ScottishInternational Master chess player (IM Title 1969), Bachelor of Science inPure Maths, Physics and Statistics^[2] , renowned computer chess expert and promoter, tournament organizer, businessman, and until August 2019 president of theICGA, the International Computer Games Association. David Levy authored and co-authored an enormous number of articles and books on Chess, Computer Chess and AI-Topics. Noteworthy is the commercial edition of his Ph.D. thesisLove and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships^[3] , which he defended successfully on October 11, 2007, atMaastricht University, The Netherlands.

Photos

3-1.computer chess.david levy.102634531.lg.jpg

David Levyponders next move againstChess 4.6^[4]

Chess Pioneers Mittman Newborn Marsland Slate Levy Shannon Thompson Truscott.c1980.102665753.lg.jpg

Chess pioneers inSacher Hotel Vienna, Austria 1980:Ben Mittman,Monty Newborn,
Tony Marsland,Dave Slate,David Levy,Claude Shannon,Ken Thompson,
Betty Shannon,Tom Truscott^[5]

The Gambler

The Levy Bet

Cartoon by Jeff Ragsdale^[6]

In1968,Donald Michie, founder of the Department ofMachine Intelligence andPerception at theUniversity of Edinburgh, invited Levy, already a strong international chess player and graduated computer scientist, to the Artificial Intelligence (AI) workshop in Edinburgh^[7] . Levy played a friendly game of chess againstJohn McCarthy, which Levy won. McCarthy remarked that David was able to beat him, but predicted a computer program would beat David within ten years. David then offered the famousbet, that within that time no chess program would beat him in a tournament match. McCarthy took the bet after consulting Michie^[8]. The two made a 500Pound bet, which was later more than doubled when Donald Michie,Seymour Papert fromMIT andEd Kozdrowicki from theUniversity of California, joined in the wager^[9] . David Levy redeemed the bet ten years later, winning amatch againstChess 4.7 in Toronto,1978^[10] . He won a second 5 year bet in 1984,versus Cray Blitz, and then offered a price for the first computer chess team beating him. He finally got crashed 0-4 byDeep Thought in 1989^[11].

Did they all pay up?

Following letter by David Levy was published in theICCA Newsletter, Vol. 2, No 1, February 1979:

Since mymatch in Toronto, last August and September, in which I won my ten years old bet, many people have asked me the inevitable question, "Did they all pay up?", meaning the four people with whom I made the bet. I should like to use the pages of the Newsletter to answer this question and to save people from writing to me or asking me about it.

Donald Michie,John McCarthy andSeymour Papert all paid promptly and with good sportsmanship, just as I would have done had I lost.Edward Kozdrowicki, currently of theAerospace Corporation inEl Segundo, California, has not paid and has refused to respond in a positive fashion to a number of telephone calls and letters.

I trust that this answers all questions relating to the payment of the bet.

Advent of EGT

CHAOS failed

Quote by David Levy from hisComputer Chess Compendium, The Endgame, pp. 293-294:

The Ending ofKRPKR, first attracted the attention of chess programmers in 1974. I was talking to the programmers ofCHAOS, during theACM 1974 in San Diego, and they expressed doubt at my statement that within a year they would not be able to program a computer to play this configuration correctly for both sides, winning with the extra pawn whenever a win was possible, drawing with a pawn less whenever the game really should end in a draw. The discussion closed with a $100 bet, and at the following year's tournament they paid up, admitting that the task was so difficult that they had not even been able to start on it.

Thompson's Databases

The discussion onKRPKR atACM 1974 further inspiredKen Thompson to work some 10 years on chess endgames and to develop theThompson's Databases^[12] :

The second tournament I was in was in San Diego in about '75, '74. And in that tournamentDavid Levy, who is a famous chess personality, was the tournament director. And after the games we were in the bar talking and he was saying that "computers can't play endgames, even simple endgames and they never will." And he said "I am an expert in the rook and pawn against rook endgame and a computer will never play a rook and pawn against rook endgame." And so, I went to my room that evening and was calculating the numbers and came to the conclusion that this was doable, that you could solve that game, absolutely solve it by a different mechanism, you know, not by normal computer chess but by a different mechanism. You could just have the answer and look it up and make a table of everything you are supposed to do. And I came back the next day and told him about it and he say's "nah, it takes too many plys, you know", and I said "no, it is ply independent, this is a different method", so he say's "ah no" so he just "poo poo'd me" and I got sort of, angry is not the right word but I got, you know, you know, so I went home and I worked probably for about ten years on endgames.

Scotch versus Vodka

David Levy further on a second KRPKR bet inChess and Computers, pp. 132-133:

In December 1974, when my wife and I were visiting Moscow, I made the same bet withDr. Arlazarov. I did not wish to corrupt him with the offer of a cash bet and so I suggested a wager of twelve bottles ofvodka (if I won) against twelve bottles ofScotch. The period of the bet was to expire at the end of 1975, and the arbiter was to be GrandmasterYuri Averbakh^[13] , President of the Soviet Chess Federation and one of the world's leading endgame experts. I suggested to Averbakh that he give the program the task of winning two or three theoretically won positions, with him playing the defence, and that he tried to win against the program from two or three different theoretically drawn positions^[14] . Just after the beginning of 1976 I received a telegram from Moscow saying: "KAISSA successfully examined by Averbakh on December 27th"^[15]^[16] .

WCCC and ICCA

WCCC

David Levy, already associated withMonroe Newborn andBen Mittman from the earlyACM Computer Chess Championships, was initiator and co-founder of theWorld Computer Chess Championship in 1974, as suggested by the Soviet programmers ofKaissa^[17] :

Since 1972(1970 Editor) in the USA and Canada were hold the yearly championships of North America among the chess programs, organized by theACM. The team of Kaissa directed the organizers of these tournaments to the thought to conduct a world championship, whose organization within the framework its regular congress took upon itself.

ICCA

Three years later at the 2ndWCCC 1977 in Toronto, together with more enthusiastic chess programmers and suggested byBarend Swets, David Levy co-founded the International Computer Chess AssociationICCA -Ben Mittman was elected as its first president. David Levy organized a lot of computer chess championships, acting as tournament director, reporter or as participant. He was founder and organizer of theComputer Olympiad and theMind Sports Olympiads.

President

From 1986 to 1992, David Levy was president of the ICCA, then vice president until 1999 and since then until August 2019 president again, since 2002 of the renamedICGA^[18]^[19].

Computer Chess and AI Business

Intelligent Software

In 1979, along with his business partnerKevin O’Connell, David Levy foundedPhilidor Software, and in 1981Intelligent Software^[20] . Business was developing and tradingdedicated chess computers^[21]^[22] and programs for home computers and PCs. Intelligent Software had several computer chess programmers under contract,Mark Taylor,David Broughton,Mike Johnson,Richard Lang and a Checkers programmer calledMartin Bryant^[23] . Primary business and trading partners wereEric Winkler^[24] andEric White^[25] with their respective companies.

Intelligent Toys

David Levy is nowCEO ofIntelligent Toys Ltd., a London-based company founded in 2001 that develops toys that incorporateAI, and led the teams that won theLoebner Prize two times in 1997 and 2009^[26]^[27] .

Programs

Levy is mentioned as co-author^[28] of following chess programs, competing at ICCA-tournaments, while he actually was not a programmer but advisor:

Man vs. Machine

Selected Publications

^[29]^[30]^[31]

1976 ...

Jean E. Hayes,David Levy (1976).The world computer chess championship, Stockholm 1974. University Press (Edinburgh) ISBN 0852242859
David Levy (1976).Chess and Computers. Batsford
David Levy (1976).1975 U.S. Computer chess championship. Computer Science Press »ACM 1975
David Levy (1977).1976 US Computer Chess Championship. Computer Science Press, Woodland Hills, CA »ACM 1976
David Levy (1978).ACM '78.ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1 »ACM 1978
David Levy (1978).How I won.ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 2
David Levy (1978).The PCW Microcomputer Chess Championships,Personal Computer World, November 1978,pdf^[32]
David Levy (1979).Computer and Chess - How the monster thinks.Elektor, January 1979^[33]
David Levy (1979).How I beat the monster.Elektor, January 1979
Allan Gottlieb,Peter W. Frey,David Levy,Johann Joss (1979). Letters onHandicapping Computer Chess Programs,ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 2, No. 1
David Levy (1979).Chess Programming - Before You Begin.Personal Computer World, May 1979

1980 ...

David Levy (1980).Intelligent Games.Creative Computing, Vol. 6, No. 4, hosted by theInternet Archive
David Levy,Ben Mittman,Monroe Newborn (1980).3rd World Computer Chess Championship.ICCA Newsletter, Vol. 3, No. 3 »WCCC 1980
David Levy,Kevin O’Connell (1981).The Best Chess Computer Yet?Chess, July 1981 »Philidor^[34]
David Levy,Kevin O’Connell (1981).A New World Champion.Chess, October/November 1981 »WMCCC 1981^[35]
David Levy,Monroe Newborn (1981).More Chess and Computers, The Microcomputer Revolution, The Challenge Match. Computer Science Press, Inc., Potomac, Maryland. ISBN 0-914894-07-2
David Levy,Monroe Newborn (1982, 1983).All About Chess and Computers.Springer

David Levy (1982).Robots. Translation ofHenri Vigneron (1914).Les Automates. also inDavid Levy (ed.) (1988).Computer Chess Compendium, pp. 273-278.pdf fromcyberneticzoo.com »El Ajedrecista