 David Levy at Pamplona 2009 (WCCC – CO – ACGC) | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1945-03-14)14 March 1945 (age 80) London, England |
| Chess career | |
| Country | Scotland |
| Title | International Master (1969) |
| Peak rating | 2360 (July 1971) |
David Neil Laurence Levy (born 14 March 1945) is anInternational Master ofchess who plays for Scotland, and a businessman. He is noted for his involvement withcomputer chess andartificial intelligence, and as the founder of theComputer Olympiads and theMind Sports Olympiads. He has written more than 40 books on chess and computers.
Levy was born in London and went toQueen Elizabeth's School, Barnet. He won the London Junior Chess Championship in 1965 and 1966.[1] He won theScottish Chess Championship in 1968. He tied for fifth place at the 1969Praia da RochaZonaltournament, scoring over two-thirds and thereby obtaining the title of International Master.[1] He played on Board One for the Scottish team at the 1972Chess Olympiad inSkopje,Yugoslavia, scoring six wins, five draws, and seven losses (47.2%).[2] After many years of inactivity as a tournament player, Levy returned to tournament play to play for the Scottish Senior Team.[citation needed]
Levy became a professional chess writer in 1971.[1] Several of his books were co-written with English GrandmasterRaymond Keene.[3] Levy was married to Keene's sisterJacqueline for 17 years.[4] He has functioned as literary agent for the escapedGreat Train robber,Ronald Biggs and claims to have masterminded his escape from British justice.[5]
In 1974, Levy together withMonty Newborn and Ben Mittman organized the firstWorld Computer Chess Championship. In 1978, he co-founded the International Computer Chess Association.[citation needed]
In the late 1970s, Levy consulted withTexas Instruments on the development of the Chess module for theTI-99/4A Home Computer Project and went on to set up Intelligent Software to produce chess software and hardware for a number of companies includingMilton Bradley.[6] Intelligent Software would later collapse as a result of its involvement in the failedEnterprise home computer.[7]
In 1997, he funded the team that won theLoebner Prize for the program called "CONVERSE".The prize competition rewards the program that is best able to simulate human communication. Levy entered the contest again in 2009, and won.[8]
From 1986 to 1992 and from 1999 to 2018, he was the president of the International Computer Games Association.[9]He was Chairman of the Rules and Arbitration Committee for theKasparov vs.Deep Junior chess match in New York City in 2003.
Levy once started a business called Tiger Computer Security with a computer hacker,Mathew Bevan.
Levy also wroteLove and Sex with Robots, published in the United States in 2007 byHarperCollins, and in paperback in 2009 byDuckworth in the UK.[10] It is the commercial edition of his PhD thesis, which he defended successfully on 11 October 2007, atMaastricht University, Netherlands. On 17 January 2008, he appeared on the late night television showThe Colbert Report to promote his book. In September 2009, Levy predicted that sex robots would hit the market within a couple of years.[8] He defended his controversial views on the potential future wide use of sex robots by the public, and also by sex offenders, in an interview withThe Guardian newspaper in December 2015.[11] Levy has also been working on a range of sexually erotic chatbots, which have been created by a team based in a lab in Malaysia.[12] However his research into human-robot sexual relations has not been viewed favourably by the Malaysian authorities who ruled the 2015 Congress on Love and Sex with Robots, which was due to be co-chaired by Levy, as illegal[13] following the organisers' attempt to imply the Malaysian governments' endorsement by using the Tourism Malaysia logo on their website.[14] The Congress on Love and Sex with Robots was again cancelled in 2018. Initially committee members of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment (ACE) objected to plans to partner the two events in Montana andSpringer Nature cancelled plans to publish the proceedings due to a lack of academic papers.[15] Further controversy then arose over the invitation ofSteve Bannon to keynote at ACE leading to both events being cancelled.[16]
Levy was brought in to a new company called Retro Computers Ltd, by his friendClive Sinclair. This company was formed after a meeting with Sinclair and Paul Andrews who conceived theZX Spectrum Vega games console. This was backed by members of the public on a crowd funding site raising over £150,000 in 2015, and delivered successfully to backers that same year. A second portable console, theZX Spectrum Vega+, was proposed, and crowd funded again, but two of the four founding directors (Paul Andrews and Chris Smith) left the company in April 2016 before the crowd funding finished. They left citing[17] irreconcilable differences between them and the last remaining director Levy. Levy continued with the company installing two replacement directors, Suzanne Martin and Janko Mrsic-Flogel, both long term associates of Levy. The Vega+ console was originally intended to be delivered to backers in September 2016, but as of August 2017 the device remained unreleased amid claims of "infighting and legal battles". Despite condensed accounts being filed for the company atCompanies House no information has been provided to identify the status of funds.[18] In September 2017 the company's bank statements were released showing that by 2017 all money raised via Indiegogo had been spent by RCL with no product to show for it,[19] but calls from the backers for Levy to explain why the company had previously toldThe Inquirer that the missing funds were "safe" and "ring-fenced" went unanswered.[20] On 23 January 2019 a Petition to wind up the company was filed by Private Planet Limited, owned by Mrsic-Flogel. Liquidators were appointed 4 April 2019 leaving backers empty-handed.[21]
In 1968, Levy andartificial intelligence (AI) pioneerJohn McCarthy were at a party hosted byDonald Michie. McCarthy invited Levy to play a game of chess which Levy won. McCarthy responded that 'you might be able to beat me, but within 10 years there will be a computer program that can beat you.' Levy suggested they bet on it, and Michie agreed to up the ante. Other AI experts signed on later, with the bet total reaching £1,250.[22][23][24][25] In 1973, Levy wrote:[26]
Clearly, I shall win my ... bet in 1978, and I would still win if the period were to be extended for another ten years. Prompted by the lack of conceptual progress over more than two decades, I am tempted to speculate that a computer program will not gain the title of International Master before the turn of the century and that the idea of an electronicworld champion belongs only in the pages of a science fiction book.
Researchers expected that a large network of computers would cooperate against Levy, untilChess 3.0, a program written by Larry Atkin, Keith Gorlen, and David Slate ofNorthwestern University, won the first United States Computer Chess Championship in 1970. Although Chess 4.0 in 1973 and 1974 achieved aUnited States Chess Federation rating higher than that of the average tournament player,[25] until 1977 no computer program was good enough to pose a serious threat to Levy.[27] In April 1977 he played a two-game match against Slate and Atkin'sChess 4.5, which had done well in human events, including winning the 1977 Minnesota Open,[27] and had defeated Levy inblitz conditions.[28] After Levy won the first game, the second was not played since Levy could not possibly lose the match.[29] On 17 December, Levy played a two-game match againstKaissa; once again Levy won the first game and the match was terminated.[30] In August 1978, Levy played a two-game match against MacHack; this time both games were played, Levy winning 2–0.[31][32]
The final match necessary for Levy to win the bet also was played in August and September 1978 at theCanadian National Exhibition,[25] againstChess 4.7, the successor to Chess 4.5. Levy won the bet, defeating 4.7 in a six-game match by a score of 4½–1½.[33][34] The computer scored a draw in game two after getting a completely winning position but being outplayed by Levy in theendgame, and a win in game four—the first computer victory against a human master in a tournament—when Levy essayed the very sharp, dubiousLatvian Gambit.[35][25] He played the gambit after playing the local street player Josef Smolij the night before the game.[36] Levy wrote, "I had proved that my 1968 assessment had been correct, but on the other hand my opponent in this match was very, very much stronger than I had thought possible when I started the bet."[37] He observed that, "Now nothing would surprise me (very much)."[38]
To further stimulate the growth of computer chess, Levy suggested toOmni magazine that he would offer $1,000 to the first program to beat him if they added $4,000 to this, for a total of $5,000.[22][37] In 1989, the authors of theDeep Thought program won the prize when their program beat Levy.
In 1996,Popular Science asked Levy aboutGarry Kasparov's impending match againstDeep Blue. Levy confidently stated that "...Kasparov can take the match 6 to 0 if he wants to. 'I'm positive, I'd stake my life on it.'"[39] Afterlosing the first game, Kasparovwon the match by a score of 4–2. The following year, helost their historic rematch 2½–3½.
On 28 June 2011, David Levy and the International Computer Games Association (ICGA) concluded their investigation and determined thatVasik Rajlich in programmingRybka hadplagiarised two other chess software programs:Crafty andFruit.[40] According to Levy and the ICGA, Vasik Rajlich failed to comply with the ICGA rule that each computer chess program must be theoriginal work of the entering developer and that those "whose code is derived from or including game-playing code written by others must name all other authors, or the source of such code, in their submission details".[41][42][43][44][45]
In response to the suspension, Vasik Rajlich was interviewed by Rybka fan Nelson Hernandez, in which he responded to the ICGA's allegations in a statement and answered questions about the controversy and his opinions on it.[46]
In January 2012,ChessBase.com published an article by Dr. Søren Riis. Riis, a computer science professor atQueen Mary University of London, was critical of Levy's and the ICGA's decision, the investigation, the methods on which the investigation was based, and the panel members themselves.[47] ICGA President David Levy and University of Sydney research fellow in mathematics Mark Watkins responded to Riis' publication with their own statements defending the ICGA panel and findings, respectively.[48][49]
In February 2012, ChessBase published a two-part interview with Levy in which he answered many questions about the ICGA's decision to ban Rybka.[50][51]
