Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For us to make sure that we have full lives, meaningful lives, we will have to elevate our unique human qualities. And I think we know now, we can see clearly what makes us different from machines. And that's why the future is enhanced humanity.
More and more people in my country recognise the dangers of having their governors appointed by Putin and having no influence in parliament because Parliament today is also following instructions from Kremlin and no longer represents its people.
I certainly want to be involved in politics and help shape the transition. I am in contact with regime critics who had to leave for the West. One of them is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former businessman, who had to endure 10 years in a prison camp.
His teaching became a turning point in chess history: it was from Steinitz that the era of modern chess began. The contribution of the first world champion to its development is comparable with the great scientific discoveries of the 19th century.
The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political, and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.
Vladimir Putin likes Donald Trump because he supports this view of the world, that the big guys can carve it up, sit and talk about the world, carve up the countries, shape borders. For Putin, treaties, alliances, Nato, the EU are stumbling blocks.
From Ukraine to Syria, he [Vladimir Putin] is behaving like the world's new general and celebrating victories, while the American president sits on the sidelines and Europe sleeps. The West's behavior toward Putin is political and moral capitulation.
Constructs like race will decline in relevance in a roboticized world. That how well one human subset or community - a race, a nationality, a religion - is doing will be secondary to how well humanity in general is doing in face of the robot revolution.
We see threats to liberal democracy coming from lots of directions. We have to create something new, a common response, because in so many places - the UK, France, Germany - ultranationalists and the far left threaten the free market and liberal democracy.
I don't make any secret of the fact that I'm closer to the Republicans than to the Democrats. But even under a President Hillary Clinton, US foreign policy toward Moscow would probably be more critical and confrontational. I hope it isn't too late for that.
[Romans] never made any improvements on the cavalry. And amazingly, when you read the sources, they couldn't make it because stirrups were not known in Europe. For hundreds of years, the Romans couldn't make a cavalry which proved to be extremely effective.
Ukraine had quite serious impact on the many Russians. They could see that ordinary people in Ukraine which is a bordering state, very close to Russia, the people of this state are, they didn't want to tolerate anymore the power abuse by Ukrainian officials.
It was an impressive achievement, of course, and a human achievement by the members of the IBM team, but Deep Blue was only intelligent the way your programmable alarm clock is intelligent. Not that losing to a $10 million alarm clock made me feel any better.
The regime is in trouble economically and can no longer offer anything to its citizens. That's why [Vladimir] Putin has to pursue an aggressive foreign policy, so he can serve his people the fairy tale of Russian pride and regaining its strength as a major power.
Ironically, the main task of chess software companies today is to find ways to make the program weaker, not stronger, and to provide enough options that any user can pick from different levels and the machine will try to make enough mistakes to give him a chance.
In my opinion, this vicious circle will be broken by history itself. Because sticking to the current form of governance, which is to say guaranteeing the survival of [Vladimir] Putin's regime, will necessarily lead to the demise of Russia within its present borders.
Recognise that the free world is at war with Putin, and America is the leader of the free world and should build the coalition against him. It is similar to what Harry Truman did in the Forties. They have to oppose the threat that comes from Putin and other dictators.
Dictatorships can exist with free markets - not that China is really a free market - especially in poor countries where the regime insists that it's a choice between food and liberty, a false choice. But increasing affluence will inevitably result in political pressure.
Rosneft, for instance, was mainly built upon capital stolen from [jailed oligarch Mikhail] Khodorkovsky's company, but the IPO was successful with many Western corporations investing in it. This means that it is extremely difficult to detect these assets in their pure form.
With some reservation, it can be said that certain democratic elements are present in Georgia as well; but it is very clear that the government has to pronounce its explicit wish to resign before something is going to happen. On the western front, only Belarus is an exception.
I can't think of a scenario under which [Vladimir Putin] would gradually resign from power. For him and those around him, power became a source of unlimited enrichment. A loss of power would be tantamount to an annihilation of the economic success that has been achieved so far.
Many people think they are too refined, or too rational, to entertain a real sense of wonder in themselves or in others. This is preposterous to me, since the natural world is full of endless wonders, both on Earth and especially in space, no matter how you think it was created.
[Vladimir] Putin intended to provide for a broad safety corridor [for the Olympic Games]. That's why Abkhazia was a more important and desired goal of Russian aggression against Georgia than South Ossetia, which merely served as a pretext. Concerns mainly centered on the Crimea.
I started playing chess when I was five years old. I learned the moves from my mother, then worked with my father - and later trainers. My style became very technical. I sacrificed a lot of things. I was always hunting for the king, for the mate. I'd forget about my other pieces.
...comparing the capacity of computers to the capacity of the human brain, I've often wondered, where does our success come from? The answer is synthesis, the ability to combine creativity and calculation, art and science, into whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.
The international repercussions were shattering to some extent - there is no intention to repeat operations of such kind in the future.[Viktor] Yanukovych's electoral victory clearly demonstrated that there are no pro-Russian politicians in the Ukraine, just Ukrainian politicians.
The only game [Vladimir] Putin can play is to establish a lifelong dictatorship in the country, at first de facto and finally also de jure. In this case, [Dmitri] Medvedev is an interim figure bound to assist Putin in his plan to guarantee a smooth transition to a new term in office.
A championship contender in the early twentieth century needed charisma and a knack for cultivating sponsorship, and Rubinstein was the epitome of the shy and unsocial chess player. Now matter how great his chess skills, he lacked the people skills to be a self-promoter and fund-raiser.
I would not draw definitive conclusions from that. If we look at South and North Korea, it is pretty hard to believe that we're dealing with the same people. Half of the people are forced to live in a concentration camp; the other have created one of the most dynamic economies in the world.
Chess continues to advance over time, so the players of the future will inevitably surpass me in the quality of their play, assuming the rules and regulations allow them to play serious chess. But it will likely be a long time before anyone spends 20 consecutive years as number, one as I did.
I've seen up close the benefits and drawbacks of kids working with super-strong chess programs in their training, and they definitely think differently than past generations thanks to this alien influence. While we are making our machines more intelligent, they are also changing how we think.
You're always going to have dangerous, disaffected people in any society, and some will be violent. Increasing prosperity and reducing inequality won't solve that completely. But having big, positive dreams and a society that makes it possible to achieve those dreams is what we must strive for.
Karabakh conflict has a strong influence on the political climate both in Azerbaijan and Armenia. It is obvious, too, that the Azerbaijani leadership can capitalize indefinitely on this topic to underpin its legitimacy even in a situation in which democratic institutions are virtually eliminated.
Chess is far too complex to be definitively solved with any technology we can conceive of today. However, our looked-down-upon cousin, checkers, or draughts, suffered this fate quite recently thanks to the work of Jonathan Schaeffer at the University of Alberta and his unbeatable program Chinook.
[Vladimir] Putin is more of a poker player. In poker, unlike chess, you can effectively compensate for a very weak hand by bluffing. There are fixed rules in chess, and no one knows how the game will end. Things are currently the other way around in Putin's realm. But it won't stay that way forever.
[Vladimir] Putin wants to keep [Bashar] Assad in power and expand his own military base in Syria, whatever the cost. I even believe he has an interest in more and more people fleeing the country. The flow of refugees improves his negotiating position toward the West, including the German chancellor.
The Far East and Eastern Siberia are already developing according to a Chinese scenario, the full scope of which will be revealed in the near future. In the next 10 to 15 years, a lot of Russian territories will become at least de facto Chinese. This will change the situation in Russia fundamentally.
For inspiration I look to those great players who consistently found original ways to shock their opponents. None did this better than the eighth world champion, Mikhail Tal. The "Magician of Riga" rose to become champion in 1960 at age twenty-three and became famous for his aggressive, volatile play.
The loss of my childhood was the price for becoming the youngest world champion in history. When you have to fight every day from a young age, your soul can be contaminated. I lost my childhood. I never really had it. Today I have to be careful not to become cruel, because I became a soldier too early.
We can't attribute a long history of democratic traditions to Japan, either, but today Japan boasts a fully-fledged democracy in which governments change according to democratic procedures. It's no coincidence that the Taiwanese, Japanese, and South Korean economies are among the most innovative in Asia.
We must be optimistic about the future because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we are creative and ambitious, intelligent machines will liberate us and be as profound a boon to our prosperity as electricity. If we are fearful, and fail to press ahead, we could be overwhelmed by automation and inequality.
We don't have a choice. A united democratic Eurasian continent welded together by common economic interests is our only hope and contribution to stability in the world. If we fail, I fear that Russia in its present form is in for the most serious of upheavals - the outcome of which is extremely unpredictable.
Donald Trump is a catalyst. People care now in a way they didn't. The American institutions were rusting; now they are being revitalised. Trump is a lightning rod. They are getting engaged and the American liberal media that spent too much time on PC issues can focus on Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
There is no one that can share your responsibility. It it is your responsibility you must carry it on and you must be responsible for your actions. At the end of the day we all are being challenged, sooner or later, by our destiny. And it's up to us to make all the difference in this life. If not you, who else?
Alexei Navalny, the opposition politician who has led anti-corruption protests, had a blog about a credit line to a company owned by Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, $1.75 billion from Russian state funds; this is one transaction. Putin controls more money directly and indirectly than any individual in human history.
The slightest sign of stability is used by local authoritarian leaders to bargain for the sympathies of Western countries that are, for the sake of a balanced relationship, bound to turn a blind eye to obvious, blatant violations of human rights and the deconstruction of democratic institutions in these countries.
My mother lives in Moscow, and I would like to visit her. Now she always has to travel to Finland or a Baltic country to meet me. But I have to expect that my papers would be confiscated in Moscow immediately, and that they would harass my family. I can still have more impact in the West with my books and lectures.
Unfortunately, in Russia this "Asian mentality,"still comes to the fore. But at the same time, it is obvious that there is a certain orientation toward the West. In the end, this is a fragile balancing act between the Asian manner of governance and high living standards that are guaranteed through Western technology.
Boris Vasilievich was the only top-class player of his generation who played gambits regularly and without fear ... Over a period of 30 years he did not lose a single game with the King's Gambit, and among those defeated were numerous strong players of all generations, from Averbakh, Bronstein and Fischer, to Seirawan.
Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the countries of Eastern Europe, being under the control of the USSR, would call their states "people's republics." The sham that is currently going on in the states of the former Soviet Union is due to the fact that the politicians in power are eager to polish up their image abroad.