Deep Blue Does More Than Chess

NEW YORK (AP) -- Sure, Deep Blue can analyze 200 million chess moves a second. But did IBM spend all that time on a supercomputer just to win bragging rights over Garry Kasparov?

Not really.

The computer, currently engaged in a chess match with the Russian champion, is a better machine for all of its chess training. But it is already being used throughout the world in more practical ways.

A chain of Midwest department stores is using it as perhaps the world's fastest stock clerk. It's reducing the number of nuclear test explosions. It may even be responsible for some of your junk mail.

"But it's a better class of junk mail," says Eric Rosencrans, marketing operations manager for the IBM division that sells the RS/6000SP supercomputer, which was warming up to take on Kasparov in Game 3 in Manhattan tonight.

"Just like in chess, the computer goes through all the possibilities," Rosencrans said. "The better it is at picking out potential customers, the less people get mail they don't want."

On a higher level of service to humanity, the computer can cut years off the time needed to test drugs by analyzing all potential effects, good and bad, of a new medicine, Rosencrans said.

"The information just explodes as you get into something like that and the computer just goes far beyond what humans can do in the same time," he said.

Despite winning one of two chess games so far against Kasparov, the computer is not really thinking on its own, Rosencrans said.

"Even a supercomputer only knows what we program it for," he said. "It really learns what it's taught."

Others are a bit more blunt.

"That's a dumb computer," says Lawrence Fogel, a former National Science Foundation researcher who develops computer programs. "You can't call it artificial intelligence because it's nothing like human intelligence. It just follows one set of rules."

Although the chess games smack of showmanship, IBM says the match is a way of measuring the computer's progress.

Even if Kasparov beats Deep Blue -- as he did a year ago, before its programming was refined -- "We win," said Mark Bregman, general manager of the supercomputer division.

"By taking on these very tough challenges, we reach further and further to produce better computers," he said.

Deep Blue is a 32-node version of the RS/6000, which means it's like 32 computers working at once. IBM sells versions with as few as one node -- for $150,000 -- or as many as 512, which cost tens of millions of dollars.

The federal government is paying $94 million for an enhanced version -- DOE Option Blue -- to simulate nuclear explosions so it can test atomic bombs without blowing them up.

Deep Blue is among IBM's fastest growing products, with about 2,500 installed worldwide, Rosencrans said.

Oil companies use RS/6000s to analyze the best places to drill. A brokerage company uses one for assessing thousands of stocks and accounts.

At ShopKo Stores, based in Green Bay, Wis., an RS/6000 analyzes inventory of 300,000 items at each of ShopKo's 125 stores in ways other than just keeping track of what's on the shelves.

The computer lets ShopKo know "if people buy flashlights and then come back for batteries or if they buy them together," said Daniel Olp, the company's technical director. "With inventory, it helps us decide what to feature on the front cover of an advertising circular."

IBM suggests its supercomputer could someday also be used in weather forecasting, medical care and even sports, helping an NBA coach quickly analyze possible strategies.

In chess, the computer has the advantage of sensing deviations in previous patterns of play, which lends itself to other applications like detecting credit-card fraud.

"I once got called by my credit card company because I made a phone call from an airplane," Rosencrans said. "I hadn't done that before, and the computer said, "Maybe it's not him."'