Garry Kasparov: Fear of Mistake Guarantees Mistakes | AI Podcast Clips
00:00:00.000 | - As perhaps the greatest chess player of all time,
00:00:04.200 | when you look introspectively at your psychology
00:00:07.320 | throughout your career, what was the bigger motivator?
00:00:10.800 | The love of winning or the hatred of losing?
00:00:13.500 | - Tough question.
00:00:16.080 | Have to confess I never heard it before,
00:00:20.040 | which is again, congratulations,
00:00:21.960 | it's quite an accomplishment.
00:00:23.400 | Losing was always painful.
00:00:29.440 | For me, it was almost like a physical pain
00:00:32.720 | because I knew that if I lost the game,
00:00:36.380 | it's just because I made a mistake.
00:00:39.800 | So I always believed that the result of the game
00:00:44.720 | had to be decided by the quality of my play.
00:00:49.200 | Okay, you may say it sounds arrogant,
00:00:52.580 | but it helped me to move forward
00:00:54.720 | because I always knew that there was room for improvement.
00:00:58.280 | So it's the-- - Was there the fear
00:01:00.200 | of the mistake?
00:01:01.160 | - Actually, fear of mistake guarantees mistakes.
00:01:04.880 | And the difference between top players,
00:01:07.600 | the very top, is that it's the ability to make a decision
00:01:12.600 | without predictable consequences.
00:01:14.600 | You don't know what's happening.
00:01:15.760 | It's just intuitively, I can go this way or that way.
00:01:18.800 | And there are always hesitations.
00:01:20.880 | People are like, you are just at the crossroad.
00:01:23.280 | You can go right, you can go left, you can go straight.
00:01:25.440 | You can turn and go back.
00:01:26.960 | And the consequences are just very uncertain.
00:01:31.320 | Yes, you have certain ideas what happens on the right
00:01:35.200 | or on the left, or just if you go straight,
00:01:37.200 | but it's not enough to make well-calculated choice.
00:01:41.600 | And when you play chess at the very top,
00:01:44.560 | it's about your inner strength.
00:01:46.920 | So I can make this decision.
00:01:49.240 | I will stand firm, and I'm not going to waste my time
00:01:53.060 | because I have full confidence that I will go through.
00:01:56.900 | Now, going back to your original question is,
00:02:00.320 | I would say neither.
00:02:02.520 | It's just, it's love for winning, hate for losing.
00:02:07.200 | They were important elements, psychological elements.
00:02:09.800 | But the key element, I would say the driving force
00:02:14.800 | was always my passion for making a difference.
00:02:21.520 | It's just, I can move forward, and I can always enjoy
00:02:26.520 | not just playing, but creating something new.
00:02:29.880 | - Creating something new.
00:02:31.360 | How do you think about that?
00:02:32.740 | - It's just finding new ideas in the openings,
00:02:35.680 | some original plan in the middle game.
00:02:37.700 | Actually, that helped me to make the transition
00:02:41.520 | from the game of chess, where I was on the very top,
00:02:44.120 | to another life, where I knew I would not be number one.
00:02:48.380 | I would not be necessarily on the top,
00:02:50.300 | but I could still be very active and productive
00:02:54.940 | by my ability to make the difference,
00:02:58.460 | by influencing people, say,
00:03:00.640 | joining the democratic movement in Russia,
00:03:03.160 | or talking to people about human-machine relations.
00:03:06.760 | There's so many things where I knew my influence
00:03:11.000 | may not be as decisive as in chess,
00:03:13.940 | but still strong enough to help people
00:03:17.260 | to make their choices.
00:03:19.840 | So you can still create something new
00:03:21.320 | that makes a difference in the world outside of chess.
00:03:25.320 | (silence)
00:03:27.480 | (silence)
00:03:29.640 | (silence)
00:03:31.800 | (silence)
00:03:33.960 | (silence)
00:03:36.120 | (silence)
00:03:38.280 | (silence)
00:03:40.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]