Claude: On the origins and history of chess, plus a Straussian reading of DeepBlue vs. Kasparov [MR-3b]

My examination of Tyler Cowen, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution (2026), continues. While Tyler does discuss chess briefly at the end and in connection with artificial intelligence, this post has nothing to do with that discussion. That, I suppose, makes this post something of a digression. But it’s a digression in the style of Tristram Shandy, digress to progress. It’ll all make sense in the end.

Note that what I am reporting here comes at the end of a rather long discussion of chess, one that has a direction ...