BENGALURU: Elon Musk picked a fight with chess earlier this week. The world’s richest man declared on X that chess will one day be “fully solved”, the way checkers was cracked by computers back in 2007, with his logic being that most legal moves are so obviously bad that AI could eventually map the entire game.Chess.com’s response was a masterclass in brevity. “Skill issue,” they wrote. Musk doubled down anyway, insisting chess “is hard for humans, but not for computers” and would eventually be “fully solved like checkers” before admitting, almost sheepishly, that he’d spent his evening “arguing with some random intern” running the chess site’s account.Chess.com wasn’t about to let that slide. The person on the other end, it clarified, was in fact a full-time employee. The internet, predictably, had a field day.On Thursday, the current World No. 1 and five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen was asked about the emergence of AI in chess during an interview with the Indian media on the sidelines of the ongoing Global Chess League (GCL).“I’m not a computer expert, so I don’t know if it’s going to be solved,” Carlsen, currently playing for the defending champions APL Pipers, shrugged.He did offer one technical correction, gently. Chess isn’t unsolved so much as it’s already “semi-solved” in the sense that matters most to players. “We are pretty sure that it’s a draw, and it’s a draw in a tonne of ways. The margin is quite big”, which is a rather more modest claim than Musk’s vision of AI eventually calculating chess down to the last legal move.“AI and computers in general have made the game a lot more accessible,” he said. “You’re now able to follow it, see the score, you’re able to improve a lot faster.”What is his motivation behind coming to India for GCL?Asked what actually motivates him to keep showing up for a franchise-based league like GCL, he made the case for team chess with the same directness. “It’s a really good format,” he said. “I’ve said that from the start that we need team formats in chess that are genuinely exciting. The black-and-white format is very good.”He wasn’t shy about the parts he’d still tweak, pointing to the two-second increment added after move 40 as a concession to players he clearly has little patience for.“I would have preferred for there not to be the two seconds after 40 moves as well,” he explained. “That has been implemented on the request of players who are incompetent and lazy at times.”
Magnus Carlsen in Pipers dugout
“The format where you have the very clear white against black, matches are staggered, which is very good. The match is always going to be decisive unless there is a six-draw. I think there are a lot of good things about it.”As for India specifically, Carlsen framed his regular return trips almost like a reset button. “I also like to come to India every second year or so because I need a year off to remind myself how crowded the tournaments are,” he continued with a smile before adding warmly, “But parts of it I really enjoy. There’s no atmosphere or enthusiasm like it in the east.”
