Hofstadter's Law

It started with a simple question for a young student in Taiwan: Can a computer beat the greatest chess player in a match? 

In 1985, when Feng-Hsiung Hsu enrolled in the graduate program at Carnegie Mellon University, he had a strong curiosity about artificial intelligence — specifically relating to computer chess. 

With a few fellow students who shared his passion, Feng-hsiung created an account on the famous Berkeley machine using Fred Rogers, from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a co-resident of Pittsburgh, as the user. 

For the next two weeks, these accounts expanded all over the Arpanet eventually having almost ten computer accounts at top US universities. When a system manager at Purdue noticed the Rogers account, tracing it back to Carnegie Mellon, Feng-Hsiung was busted. 

This minor setback didn’t deter him, or his teammates in answering the question. 

Their first rendition was called Chip Test, using a technology moved generator chip capable of searching 50,000 moves per second. Then came Chip Test-M, which ran much faster and had a expanded search capability of 500,000 moves per second. In 1988 Deep Thought was created, once again with a faster processor and able to search 720,000 moves per second. In 1989, it was renamed Deep Blue, with unlimited possibilities from the opening moves to the end games. Finally in 1997, after doubling its initial speed and thought process, Deep Blue was able to beat Garry Kasparov in 1997. It took 12 long years of hard work, mistakes, setbacks, and disappointments to finally answer the question. 

Well before Feng-Hsiung came to America Douglas Hofstadter an American scholar and cognitive scientist introduced a law with regard to the advancement of chess playing computers.

Hofstadter wrote, “In the early days of computer chess, people used to estimate that it would be 10 years until a computer (or program) was world champion. But after 10 years had passed, it seemed that the day a computer would become world champion was still more than 10 years away... This is just one more piece of evidence for the rather recursive Hofstadter's Law.” 

Hofstadter’s Law: “It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.” 

Hofstadter wasn’t referring to simple problems or hard challenges. He was referring to complex problems and projects, that we place a timeline on that never seems to be realistic. 

Hofstadter says. “We chronically underestimate the time things take: that's why Sydney Opera House opened 10 years later than scheduled, and why the new Wembley stadium opened last year, not in 2003, 2005 or 2006, each of which had been, at various points, the predicted completion date. It's also why the list-makers among us get up each day and make to-do lists that by the same evening will seem laughable, even insane.”

As we face a new year, we all should incorporate this law into our daily life. Anything of substance in our life takes time. We need to accept it will take longer. Once we accept it takes longer than we thought, our dedication to the work will improve. When the deadline becomes more important than the work, we will fall short. 

Hofstadter’s Law reminds us to keep pushing ahead, understanding time is on our side.

What matters most is our best work — not meeting the deadline. 

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