Algorithms, Medicine, Chess, and War

Abstract

To the Editor.— In an editorial entitled Chess and Combat: The Algorithm in Medicine (238:2721, 1977), William Crosby, MD, appropriately calls attention to the shortcomings of computerized teaching devices in the practice of medicine. For emphasis, however, he raises the analogy that algorithms are to... medicine as chess is to war, an unfortunate choice carrying the connotation that chess-playing is amenable to sets of finite, unerring rules and regulations. About ten years ago David Levy, an international chess master from Scotland, confidently wagered that by 1978 no electronic device would be able to defeat him over the chessboard. Despite great strides in the playing strength of computers, no one questions that his $4,000 wager is secure. Like medicine or, for that matter, law, engineering, or military science, expert chess-playing requires imagination and deviation from basic theory to score the full point. Dr Eliot Hearst, 1 a US senior chess master