Oct 27, 2019, 1:55 PM ETInterview

Garry Kasparov: Chess, Deep Blue, AI, and Putin | Lex Fridman Podcast #46

Kasparov's primary driver was not the love of winning or the hatred of losing, but a "passion for making a difference" and the creative satisfaction of generating new ideas.
He views the fear of mistakes as a self-fulfilling prophecy, asserting that top-level play requires the ability to make decisions with "unpredictable consequences" based on intuition and inner strength.
Kasparov believes that the quality of play, not just the opponent, determines the result, a mindset that allowed him to transition from a dominant player to an influential activist and author.
Even at age 56, he acknowledges a decline in concentration and energy, attributing a recent loss to Fabio Caruana to his "biological clock" rather than a lack of strategic capability.
He humorously notes that his wife suggested the "goddess of chess" prevented him from beating a top-3 player to preserve the game's perceived value and progression.

Kasparov considers his most significant creative contributions to be the unique maneuver in Game 24 against Anatoly Karpov (1985) and the psychological bluff in Game 16 of the same match, which paralyzed Karpov's army while retaining the score.
He views chess as a game of cumulative knowledge where each generation surpasses the last, making direct comparisons across eras (e.g., Kasparov vs. Magnus Carlsen) inherently flawed due to modern database access and analysis tools.
He ranks Magnus Carlsen as a "lethal combination" of Bobby Fischer's dynamic fighting style and Karpov's ability to extract maximum effect from minimal resources, enhanced by superior physical health.
Kasparov notes that the gap between top engines (3,400–3,500 rating) and Magnus Carlsen (2,850) is comparable to the gap between a world champion and an average grandmaster, driven by machine consistency rather than superior "intelligence."

The 1997 loss to Deep Blue was uniquely traumatic for Kasparov because it was his first ever loss to a machine, leading to initial suspicions of foul play and unfair organization.
He rejects the notion that chess represents the pinnacle of human intellect, arguing that machines win by simply making fewer mistakes in "closed systems" rather than by surpassing human creativity.
Kasparov anticipates that machines will dominate all closed systems (Chess, Go, Dota, etc.) by capitalizing on human inconsistencies, shifting the paradigm from "human vs. machine" to "human working with machine."
He identifies AlphaZero as a milestone for "machine-produced knowledge" and intuition (derived from self-play) rather than brute-force calculation, though human flexibility remains superior for identifying and correcting specific system errors.
Kasparov warns that expecting machines to possess morality or correct societal bias is a fallacy; machines act as mirrors, reflecting and often amplifying human prejudices present in their training data.

He characterizes undemocratic, totalitarian systems as historically doomed, citing the 20th century's failure of communism as proof that centralized planning cannot drive innovation.
Kasparov explicitly identifies Joseph Stalin as "absolute evil," arguing that communism caused more damage than any other 20th-century ideology and that the lack of a "Nuremberg trial" for communism allowed its successors to remain uncondemned.
He asserts that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 was a criminal collusion between Stalin and Hitler that started World War II, with Stalin being an early beneficiary before being forced into the Allied alliance.
Kasparov views Vladimir Putin's regime as a direct continuation of Stalinist totalitarianism and predicts its eventual, sudden collapse, though the timing remains uncertain.
He confirms with certainty that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to elect Donald Trump and intends to do the same in 2020 to ensure his survival, viewing Trump as an asset in Putin's eyes.
He argues that Trump's potential re-election poses an existential threat to the free world, specifically regarding the dismantling of NATO, and criticizes the Democratic party for focusing on secondary domestic issues while the foundations of the republic are at risk.
Kasparov resides in New York, having left Russia for safety after KGB General Oleg Kalugin indicated he was "next" in line for elimination due to his vocal opposition to Putin.

Kasparov states he would not relive any specific moment, embracing the "butterfly effect" and the belief that every mistake and experience was necessary for his eventual life trajectory.
He expresses gratitude for his ability to maintain a creative life outside of chess, balancing his activism with family life in New York, including his third marriage in 2005 and his children born there.