 Thank you very much, Gary for joining us here today, Gary as we all know is Russian chess grandmaster, former chess world champion and I mean you know if there is somebody iconically we look forward to anybody in chess it's Gary so thank you Gary for making time and talking to us today here at Entrepreneur Media in India and Asia Pacific. You know I'm sure you get this question asked a lot but what was the age when you started competing in chess you know what what was the first time you actually had the first competitive chess match? I'm always you know worry about the questions that have indefinite terms like competing because competing means what you know the games I played as as a kid in the Pioneer Palace yes then probably age seven yeah if you're talking about more you know serious events then I would say nine or ten but look as as long as I remember myself so I was playing chess and for me playing was always you know competing until 2005 when I left professional chess I still played game or two exhibitions but I'm no longer competing I'm just you know I'm enjoying it. From 1971 to 2005 I was I had been competing. Yeah but I mean the why I was asking you this question is that you know the thing is that when we start early doing something which is a more competitive sport or anything which is in professional lines do you think as a I mean and I'm asking you this as the editor of entrepreneur do you think it helps us to be more prepared to take on life's challenges instead of starting late do you have some theory for it in terms of starting early and what kind of competitive edge it gives you as a person in terms of being able to do things better and be able to manage challenges better in life. Yes but competing without starting and learning doesn't make much sense so you could be very competitive but ignorant and if you don't have tools to to support your competitiveness your eagerness to to to fight and win and you will fail so it's very important to actually to combine these things. Yeah I was competitive I'm still competitive but I knew that in order to advance myself and to play against stronger players and to climb at this you know chest ladder to the very top I needed to study so and I think that if we can teach kids this combination you study and then you compete which means you invest your time in studying and then you you applied in the knowledge that you accumulated through your studies into the competition that definitely helps. Also the game of chess is very helpful for any future engagements because it teaches kids to look at a big picture. It's not just a development of their cognitive skills but it's also understanding the effect of of your action across the board. You can do something on the coincide but then they could be certain effect reciprocates on the other side of the board and this is you know this is something that I guess many kids are missing these days also many adults. We try to compartmentalize things. We promote specialization while you know we ignore that Steve look at a big picture you know one day or one minute a day just to forget about your specialization a look to become a strategist yeah so it's very important so and definitely chess chess is a good is a good teacher at early age that will help kids to be more it took to have a broader view of any problem they're going to tackle. Sure and I mean you know do you think the analytical skills that you've got from chess is something sort of help you to naturally transition into the world of technology. It it made those those experiences those analytical skills they helped you to sort of understand technology and because technology itself is very complex so do you think it helped you to understand the whole technology world better. Look I always say that even you know having the risk of raising anger among my former colleagues I used to say that the aptitude for playing chess was nothing else than the aptitude for playing chess but having said that as I just mentioned a few minutes ago you always have a chance to transfer the knowledge from the game of chess your analytical skills your ability to look at the game and to find your mistakes and to find improvements to other areas and it's very important also to recognize what I call the limits of your ignorance and I you know I'm very proud man but I know exactly why I should stop because my authority my credibility you know just you know tells me okay that's the that's the limit and as for the world of technology while I'm not I'm not claiming to be an expert tech expert but I understand the big picture and also had plenty of experience of competing with machines and working with machines and I think I have enough in enough knowledge and credibility to tell the story of human-machine relations from competing to collaborating right and and it's in technology today you need people who are just you know doing this is the hard work you know they come up with new ideas new new apps new tech concepts but also you have to look at the big picture and to understand the trends what are the patterns because technology doesn't exist in the vacuum anything that is being developed immediately affects our lives and that's where you know I believe you know my expertise my analytical skills my ability to compare different elements of the big picture it's come comes into play and that's you know how we built our relations with of us so this is where the force here and I wrote many many essays and blogs on privacy and security AI jobs so those things that require also philosophical analysis and and understanding how how this you know very complex relations between humans and technology will affect us today and tomorrow and do you think with particularly with the pandemic I mean digitization has become a way of life even if we were slow to adopt a lot of digital technologies now we're absolutely on top of things in terms of doing or thinking digital and thinking of our businesses how we can make them digital and I mean given the fact that you know you've got such a close relationship with the vast as a security ambassador for us how is it that you see cyber security is role becoming more important because you know data is of course certainly one thing that is there but more importantly you know children are studying online today you see kids playing games online today and then there are so many transactions we're doing online today so cyber security's need and I think the premise has become much more important than what it was originally looked at so how are you telling everybody that you know what they should know about cyber security. Your question actually contained an element of an answer because you know these things are connected you know more digital technology comes into our lives you know more threats it is we are facing and we just have to recognize simple thing that our technology you know makes us more dependent on these tools which means we'll use many of them and more we use them more targets we create for call them bad guys you know the wolves in the forest that are looking for for easy prey so that's why it's the it's it's like in every in every technology it can be used for good or bad technology is agnostic I will say you know you cannot say that it's it's it helps humans or hurts humans because it depends you know who is going to use it so I always you know tell people not to be concerned about evil AI because AI is not magic wand but it's not a terminator it's it's again it's it's not a road to heaven but also it's not you know gate of hell it's it's it's what we should worry about it's it's it's human human evil intentions because humans still have monopoly for evil and now especially at the time of this of this crisis health crisis pandemics more people actually shifted from protected environment at their workplace because corporations heavily invested in in building this they were the all sorts of walls and protective systems into the air less secure sometimes totally defenseless home environment and I know just you know from many conferences that visited with as a representative of the vast and while people talk about a lot about cyber security about you know the privacy they are very they're complacent you know and that it's complacency almost at the level of negligence today we know that we have to wash our hands 20 seconds you know anti-bacterial souls just do it carefully but it's amazing that people just they'll pay a little attention with any to what I call the digital hygiene so what about your device you have your device and this device contains so so many important items for life you know so much precious information inside and all you have to do is just to follow elemental rules which does not mean you can prevent every intrusion as you know washing your hands doesn't you know help you against against the virus but for me but still you know 80 90 percent of the threats can be eliminated if you follow the rules but people talk a lot but when you start asking them about the elementary things wow this is just it's amazing this deal what is the most popular password in the world one two three four five six seven eight one is one tonight and again it's it's even with technology that is is is getting more friendly and offering us opportunities to protect our environment we pay almost no attention nobody reads you know manuals and corporations they're not pressed enough to actually create simple manuals you know not 125 pages that nobody reads but one or two pages about cybersecurity exclusive especially at the time where people are always fascinated with these new new apps you know appliances traditional appliances that have it's that's that's now become IOT so this is the all these the freezers coffee machines washing machines and now they create smart holes and the your smart home defense system depends on the weakest link and most likely this is all these news news devices built by the traditional manufacturers who special has been specializing for decades on building this washing machine coffee machines they they they're so weak and again it's that they're no standards to to make sure that you know people will recognize you know how to avoid the wars because you know if hacker gets in they know you're into your smart home through coffee machine it has access to everything we just to to entertain the public we had few events with with a vast top hacker who happens to be also a Russian yes hacker who just was specializing on finding these ways of penetrating the system we did few events on stage it's the hacking the smart home just telling people you know how easy it could be if they if they if they're complacent so I think it's very important that people learn about it as as health crisis forced us to look at the medicine and the way we know we will follow the elementary rules of hygiene so the same the same vigilance must apply to our to our digital health sure yeah I totally agree with you over there and you know I when I was sort of for this interview I was reading about your work and you've always said that you know you you've been talking a lot about man against machine and you know that man and the machine need to corroborate with each other in order to be able to create a better society so you know I think it's it's very important that while we're learning how to sort of work more on machines to learn or to enable more digital digitization in our daily lives it's also important that we understand that you know we need to be safe we need safety from machines as well we cannot be like loosely trying to manage that you know which brings me to another question Gary and I know that you always said that you know man will compete against the machine at some point of time and you've done it yourself you know with deep the deep blue game that you had my point is why does sport sort of and I think it's chess is probably the only one I see where man competes against a machine I don't see it in other sports happening but why is it important that we try to bring the culture of man trying to fight against a machine look you know in the era of political correctness as someone who lives in the United States I always insist that we say human versus machine just it started as a man versus machine but now it's always human and I think it's more precise yeah so now it's a very good question because it somehow you know reflects you know our psychology and the error of our interests because when you look at the relations between humans and machines yeah you can divide it in four phases phase one it's just you know it's forget about it machine cannot do that it's just it's the it's it's so primitive phase two oh machine can do that but it's it's weak it's like a laughing stock phase three oh it's it can do it and we can compete let's see who is stronger phase four machine is better forever after when you when you when you look at this at this at this timeline phase three the competition is the is the shortest one it's like you know tiny dots in history timeline but that what attracts us most though you know it's just it's I can tell you in any game you know it's just it goes through these four stages and eventually machine will always dominate for a simple reason because every day whether it's chess whether it's shogi Japanese chess whether it's go whether it's a Texas hold on poker whether it's a starcraft or daughter so video games so whatever game you take you can clap you can describe it as a closed system closed system and within a within closed system machine will always prevail not because machine can calculate everything to the end all all these games they are you can call them mathematically infinite so it's it's technically probably incorrect but it's the numbers in chess for instance 10 to the 46 power that's good enough for us to call it infinite but it's not about solving the game it's about making fewer mistakes and that's the that's it's a very important description that many people are missing machines beat us in these games in the closed systems not because they're perfect but because they make fewer mistakes because we're human and we are just poised to make mistakes and machines you know capitalize on it they just don't make blunders yes they're not perfect perfect but it's this they're closer to perfection within the closed system so chess was one of the first examples to demonstrate so that eventually will be you know lagging behind and while I was competing against machines and it was close and until probably 2003 2004 there was still a competition but now the difference in strengths between Magnus Carlson the current world champion and the a strong chess engine that you can buy and install on your laptop like stockfish or Houdini it's it's the same as between Usain Bolt and Ferrari there's no more competition we saw it in Gaul we saw it in other games and people always get oh there it's it's fascinating look machine beats humans here and there no it just it's inevitable so the strengths of the humans and as we should recognize that it's time for us to shift the paradigm from competition to collaboration what we can bring into the human machine collaboration it's our intuition and our ability to actually to transcend you know just you know over the closed system we can transfer knowledge from one closed system to another and machines cannot do that even when you have machine that that that performs perfectly or nearly perfectly in Starcraft the moment you change the map you have to start from scratch so this is so it's this minimal change in the rules forces machine to start reconsidering things while humans immediately can see that its systems are very very very close and almost almost similar so with with minor minor changes so it's very important for us again philosophically to recognize what is our role in human machine decision-making process we have not we have we we have not to be too proud to compete with machines where they do better but we have to find whatever is left it could be the last few that decimal places but that's that's how we can actually shift you know an angle of machines massive brute force so it's it's again my experience helps to understand so how this you know how this cooperation could become very productive and again it's a very long story but I think it's time for us especially now at a time during this pandemics to understand that you know we we should not stand we should not be standing on the way of incorporating machines and AI into into our into our world but we should actually we have to speed it up because it's happening anyway and when you look at the statistics most of the jobs today they require very very little of human creativity because over the last two or three decades we could proudly say oh this person this man this woman they're working like machine now we have to go to the opposite direction now we have to celebrate our humanity our creativity so we have to find you know what are what are the human unique human qualities that could help us to to add value to the machine decision-making process sure no I completely agree with you because I feel that you know eventually cooperation is only going to help us I mean eventually I don't think we want to eradicate the human race as it is machines have to either help us or they have to replace us in some forms but essentially the moment you said replace you know I'm I'm getting bit you know it's it's it sounds funny to me because it's the you know it's all based on these Hollywood fantasies so it is the only the determinators the metrics I mean this is this is the dystopian world that so far I see no reason why it should happen you know I'm more concerned about us you know self-destructing it's and it's using machines but again it's not machines attacking us but some crazy people you know with the with their crazy plans and then and evil intentions they could use these machines to to attack the rest of us and we'll fight back and that's the real problem so the problem is inside humanity and and I don't like us to to shift the to shift our attention to something that you know it's more of the more of the Hollywood or Bollywood or just you know this is this is not it's it's not a virtual reality it's more of our fantasies and our dystopian nightmares yeah no when I said replace I mean essentially automation so maybe in some you know it's the it's if machine does the job better than humans why not I mean it's the but that's where that's what is what is our role in these new relations because maybe we have to start when we have to concentrate on just you know expanding our horizons you know we were abandoned space exploration deep ocean exploration maybe we should start taking more risk and just you know think you know about about what human human genius can create you know in one of my presentations it's it was at Internet 50 event in Los Angeles when they celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first signal sent from UCLA to Stanford on October 29th 1969 I'm I said that you know in 1969 the humanity celebrated the Apollo 11 so that was the big inspiration for a generation for the whole world yeah people got so excited and in 2019 we celebrated iPhone 11 and this is it's it's not the same and it's just you know people don't recognize that we we reduced our creativity our genius to building apps yeah I'm happy to have a new style phone though what actually I have a Samsung so but that's it's an Android but it's this we have separation family I have Samsung all my you know my wife and my daughter they have they have apples we divided the world yeah but you know but it's you know but it's still this it's still technically it's the same you know the same device it's getting better a little bit here and that's camera is has better resolution more memory but at the end of the day where are the breakthroughs so all 11 changed our world and I believe today we can do more because this we don't have you know we don't have to worry about you know the calculations as people 50 years ago it's the in your you know in your device that is in front of you you have 10,000 times more more power than the entire you know NASA computing structure in 1969 how do we use it I don't think we use it very very wisely and and don't tell me that was this kind of power was this kind of axis we were no longer capable of of moving the mountains sure you know I was listening to one of your earlier talks and also sort of reading a bit of your book which was on deep thinking where machine learning ends and human creativity begins so you know I came across two things which it were actually that if you want to use the best of technologies we need to face our fears I would love for you to tell what are the real fears that you know we as humans have and what we should face and one thing that you mentioned in your speech was that life is really one person calculate or any sort of competitive sport or anything that you are even entrepreneurship for that matter is one person calculation and 99% inclusion so you know what intuitions today in pandemic times post that would you want to suggest to entrepreneurs look you know it's the depends on your aspirations so if you're really ambitious you should understand that we all have access to the same information so the difference between you and me or else or someone else of getting information is it's the it's how soon you can swipe your finger or move your mouse or you know just just scroll scroll on the screen we're talking about a second and maybe a split of a second if you want to make a difference you have to know where to start and start using your brains so making you know making your own analysis and also looking for patterns so can ship from machines they process data that is available to everybody now into into the world of human intuition can you get wrong yes but that means you have to take risk and that's the that's I think that's one of the key problems we have been facing over the last few decades we we've grown complacent we we don't like risk you know now mitigating risk becomes now it's like a sort of it's it's it's a alter of worship for all businesses how we just we have whole departments in big corporations analyzing how to reduce the risk but if you reduce the risk you know you are also you know you're losing on your rewards now unless you have access to to printing press and you can do you know and you can you can start issuing money you know in an unlimited quantities as as now central banks have been doing around the world but if you are in business so it's the it's the risk and reward are connected and and I think that we're just you know we we just have to leave this vicious circle where we know we cannot go beyond next quarter because this is stock market now very much dominates the minds of big corporations or even mid-sized corporations anybody was related to the market directly or indirectly through your shareholders or through your investments but the markets just you know with all due respect they just you know they are very short-horizon one of the reasons now we don't have vaccines and it takes ages to create it because for nearly two decades big pharmaceutical companies kept cutting on R&D because any company that invested more in R&D have been has been punished immediately on the market because market didn't like it R&D what it just it's a waste of money and and by 2019 they all wrapped off their programs related to antibiotics or vaccines because they're not profitable so you have to concentrate on long-term diseases like you know the cardiac problems and diabetes but this is the short term it's too cheap no forget about it and now look at the cost look at the price we're paying because you know we didn't want want you you know to have emergency plans so it's this is it's very important for us to get to recover the same spirit of innovations and risk and also understanding that you know you need you need this a strategic vision of the future that not necessarily based on on the short-term calculations and hopefully the crisis will actually force us to reconsider certain things that became pillars of modern economy and and now they are just very much you know keeping us away from from another breakthrough it's like you know that these pillars suddenly become you know fetters yes you know the chain us chain our creativity sure and particularly I mean since you mentioned about you know healthcare being an important part what particularly I mean on a larger thought what sort of opportunities or what technologies do you see sort of now emanating post the pandemic which could be very interesting to look at and which would actually maybe build some mighty corporations out of it yeah but it's it first of all you know this is speaking about healthcare is that's you know it's the I always you know I always confront those you know dystopian prophets who are talking about loss of jobs and it's there's so many you know people that over qualified people you know the in America or Europe they might be facing the challenges from machines and my answer is yes let's say you look at the some jobs in healthcare in radiology for instance and yes I understand that machine AI intervention could actually you know could could damage the the the job market in the United States or Europe but the other side of the metal it brings down the cost right which means more people can have access to to to this service not only in American Europe but also in India in Africa in Latin America so if you look at us as humanity human you know it's then we win as humanity yes I understand you know that somebody is losing I don't want to sound callous but as a humanity we win and that's very important to understand that you know this is it's it's standing on the where the progress trying to preserve status quo it's a loose proposition and I don't even know where we can start now because as I already mentioned we have so much power in our hands now we it all we need is just you know to accept certain risk because many corporations know that even new new medicine like antibiotics you know it's it will will most likely fail current tests like FDA FDA tests that were so rigid every every expert will tell you that penicillin today will be killed at the first at the first test because roughly every fifth person shows an allergy and that's absolutely unacceptable so some people say maybe Tylenol will not pass today the regulations that have been imposed so I understand that you know you can you can you know have a risk and you know some people may not may not do well with antibiotics but as a humanity always win with these new ideas and that's by the way one of the one of the arguments in favor of the space exploration because if now here on Earth the corporations the pharmaceutical companies all the inventors they have to deal with with you know impossible odds you know you need just you know it less than once one out of a thousand accidents for you for you to pass the test what then the moment you have something as risky as flight to Mars with chances of return 5050 so you will look for new medicine for new drugs for you for new ways of doing oxygen and 30% risk is already acceptable so because it improves your odds so it's this is this is for us again it's for us as humans as a humanity to recognize we have a time where just we have to thanks to pandemics by the way we have to recognize that you know it's the being cautious being all protective doesn't save us from other threats because it can come from the wild nature can come from the lab because of the mistakes actually I believe you know it was it was it came from the lab this one but it doesn't matter what what the origin it's this the world includes so many elements whether wild age or us working with that so we cannot guarantee that another part of it will not hit us and if we stop our research it will stop you know you know the engine of innovation the true innovation not you know not another you know app for for for app store but just real breaks with evasion I think we will be paying a price as we are paying now sure I mean since we're talking about technologies post pandemic and you know education technology is something that has emerged in a big way because you know every pretty much all schools had to look at online education as the way forward do you also feel do you look at it as a big opportunity I mean particularly from Kasparov Foundation's perspective are you already teaching and training children across the world in so many different countries about chess do you feel it's an opportunity for you to reach out to more kids in more countries to actually help them learn chess and be able to enable them better look it's not it's not just about chess I think that's now education is also facing facing the big challenge and I think it's good because education is the most outdated area of our life today if you make some kind of mental experiment and bring a person from mid 9th century to 2020 what this person will will recognize because everything is different except the classroom the classroom is still the same yeah you have a teacher kids so it's oh wow this is something is still you know still there I can recognize now many schools in I don't know about in there but definitely in America in many European countries they shifted to this learning and I think in America most likely schools will be closed until Christmas or there will be some kind of you know shifting you know they'll do shifts bringing some kids in out because they cannot have big full classes but this learning becomes a reality which means you know I can have you know my kids here in Croatia and they can learn from New York or you can have you know your kids in India and they can learn from Australia I mean this is the so but it's as I said it's good because we need to understand that the the whole console education the way I was taught I was taught you were taught it's totally you know it's antiquated today because the purpose of education is to prepare our kids for the future life now I was sure we're preparing preparing them for the future life for you know most of the jobs that they will they will have it 10 50 years from now I just don't exist today yeah so I think the fundamental problem of education is that we are still teaching them what instead of teaching them how because the the purpose of the education and the role of a teacher was to be the source of knowledge and authority in the classroom because he or she knew so much more than the kids today you know in a minute the kid can actually swap his or her finger and they can just learn everything so simply telling them you know oh it happened then and there why what's the purpose you know you just you just have to utilize this massive data that's available to them and it's more entertaining these kids call it iPad generation zoomers they live you know in the world which is interactive and education is still one-way street yeah and it just it's so it goes so much against the way they they they see the world and and you know I have four kids but that's this is that's from 27 20 23 girl turning 14 and little one is turning five in couple of in couple of weeks yeah so when this is the this was my wife now we have our two kids 40 and five and and you know I look at them and I could see the difference though they're nine years apart when it just you know it's already notice in these nine years it really shows the difference though of course our 14 year old he's far more advanced than my wife and I'm not even mentioning myself I'm a I'm a boomer you know so I'm just you know I'm a dinosaur so I I'm afraid of computers and I see that's how they quickly they operate but when you look at the little one I mean he just it's he breezy it's it's like breezing for you and and this is the the funny story we had lately that is he discovered somewhere you know just in our apartment my daughter's DVDs because she was still watching cartoons on DVDs in just in 2009 2010 and he didn't know what it is he thought it was a frisbee it's so it's life changes so fast and the the whole story is a point of all whole stories we have to understand that we have to guide them it's not so much what teach because they you know they they could get very they could get frustrated very very quickly if we're telling them things that just they either they can find out or they don't believe their role yeah no I agree with you and I think what is now required is more specialization for children and in fact the whole teaching quality to be made much better so that children can really fast because finding information is very easy for them but what information they'll find is that is more critical actually going back to the first question I asked about chess it's it's it's it's about application how to apply this information correctly so what is the most effective way to utilize your knowledge that's what we that's the experience we can share because you know it's just it's simply now just you know giving the sharing the information we have with them you know just that again doesn't make any sense so they will they find information quicker but they're still you know require our guidance to to apply it you know effectively in the correct spot sure so one final question I know I've taken a lot of your time Gary but you know a lot of us very very right now we don't know what the future is likely to be we feel that we don't know what is coming and it's not much even businesses even big ones they can seemingly forecast what they can expect in the year or maybe in the next year so what would be your you know you've been through so many challenges yourself each game is a different challenge you know each preparing for each competition is a different challenge so what would you tell young startups young entrepreneurs out there to sort of keep going and stay afloat and you know let things happen or take their course look we you know yeah we are going through the crisis crisis the biggest one you know in our lifetime hopefully that's the biggest one but definitely this this this challenge showed how fragile was this system based on globalization and and again all the elements that we thought were pillars now somehow just you know they are not not helping us to move safely into the future I think it's it's it's all it's also a time for for big and call risky decisions because every crisis it's also an opportunity you know its crisis means changes changes affect big corporations and big institutions more profoundly than than startups like you know when everything is collapsing you know this the it's a big dinosaur is is is is less likely to survive than than a savvy I don't know this that's the cat that can just run around so it's it's a chance and while yeah and people I understand they won't play safe it's an opportunity to actually look for for new entries because the world year two from now will be different I don't believe for a moment that we return to the status quo I don't know what will be the overall outcome it's definitely less they'll be less flying just for me it's just you know sounds a bit odd because I've been flying for last 45 years my life yeah they'll be they'll be less you know life conferences they'll be more digital but also the only other things and you know it's the I have tons of ideas you know floating in my head but we have limited time to discuss it but it's for these young startups actually to start looking for new entries because there will be opportunities again every crisis offers opportunity and and that's a time for them to actually reshape the world because I think it's this the it's people are getting more and more hungry and hungry for individual powers like you know it's not accidental the rise of Bitcoin and blockchain technology because people want to control their privacy their fortunes that's why we have opportunities so it's it's it's a it's a never-ending battle between control and freedom but you know we have we have a lot of opportunities stop complaining about Facebook's of this world you know having too much data and the governments are spying on us they won't do it I mean that's the that's the rule that's that's the name of the game how about us using this technology to turn the tape