Key Arguments

• He describes 'The glee with which this victory was announced to the computer community, as if the prior claims about what computers could do had thereby been vindicated,' indicating that AI workers treated the game as confirmatory evidence for ambitious predictions.
• He notes that Alvin Toffler 'interprets me as saying that no computer would ever play even amateur chess,' which Dreyfus calls 'a distortion.'
• He clarifies that 'From the full quotation it is clear that this is a distortion. My assertion was simply a correct report of the state of the art at the time (1965),' emphasizing that he was describing current capabilities, not issuing a timeless impossibility claim.
• He cites his original statement that according to Newell, Shaw, and Simon, existing programs were 'mediocre' and that 'Still no chess program can play even amateur chess, and the world championship is only two years away,' underscoring that his critique was directed at overconfident short‑term predictions rather than the eventual possibility of amateur‑level play.

Source Quotes

45. The glee with which this victory was announced to the computer community, as if the prior claims about what computers could do had thereby been vindicated, is echoed by Alvin Toffler on p. 187 of Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1971). The author interprets me as saying that no computer would ever play even amateur chess.

187 of Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1971). The author interprets me as saying that no computer would ever play even amateur chess. From the full quotation it is clear that this is a distortion.

The author interprets me as saying that no computer would ever play even amateur chess. From the full quotation it is clear that this is a distortion. My assertion was simply a correct report of the state of the art at the time (1965): "According to Newell, Shaw, and Simon themselves, evaluating the Los Alamos, the IBM, and the NSS programs: 'All three programs play roughly the same quality of chess (mediocre) with roughly the same amount of computing time.' Still no chess program can play even amateur chess, and the world championship is only two years away."

From the full quotation it is clear that this is a distortion. My assertion was simply a correct report of the state of the art at the time (1965): "According to Newell, Shaw, and Simon themselves, evaluating the Los Alamos, the IBM, and the NSS programs: 'All three programs play roughly the same quality of chess (mediocre) with roughly the same amount of computing time.' Still no chess program can play even amateur chess, and the world championship is only two years away." 46.

Key Concepts

• The glee with which this victory was announced to the computer community, as if the prior claims about what computers could do had thereby been vindicated, is echoed by Alvin Toffler on p. 187 of Future Shock (New York: Random House, 1971).
• The author interprets me as saying that no computer would ever play even amateur chess.
• From the full quotation it is clear that this is a distortion. My assertion was simply a correct report of the state of the art at the time (1965):
• "According to Newell, Shaw, and Simon themselves, evaluating the Los Alamos, the IBM, and the NSS programs: 'All three programs play roughly the same quality of chess (mediocre) with roughly the same amount of computing time.' Still no chess program can play even amateur chess, and the world championship is only two years away."

Context

Footnote 45 in the Introduction, where Dreyfus revisits the famous chess game between himself and an AI program and clarifies both the status of his earlier claims about chess programs and the way the AI community and popular writers like Alvin Toffler misrepresented and overinterpreted the significance of the program’s victory.