If you’re a Jeopardy! fan like me, maybe you sat in front of your television screen in total awe this week.  Maybe you sat and watched with confusion or even frustration as Watson, IBM’s super computer, handily defeated the greatest connoisseurs of cognition to ever banter with Trebeck.  Maybe you wondered about the state of humanity.  How could a computer be so much smarter than us?  How could we have created something that is better than us?  And how long will it be, as Ken Jennings quipped, before we all must “welcome our new computer overlords?”

I thought about all of this while playing a game of chess against my computer.  It helps me think sometimes.  I was frustrated, wondering how a computer could even understand what questions it was being asked.  That maniacal math magician that came up with the algorithm probably doomed us to a future that would eventually lead to the fall of humanity.  Undoubtedly, humans serve no other purpose than as batteries to the machines – just as long as there’s not a sequel to that future, it might not be so bad. 

The computer took my queen.  Check.  I didn’t even think.  Block it with a bishop.  Lost the bishop to a rook. Checkmate.

I stormed out of the room, fuming over my loss.

I walked outside and looked west.  I was arrested by the brilliance of the setting sun.  It was a magnificent blend of orange, yellow, red and splashes of blue that illuminated the face of the mountains.  The array of colors was astonishing, even for a Colorado native who’s seen the mountains explode with color many times.  I found myself wishing for a powerful grasp of the English language, longing to set my feelings down in a series of words that would do this moment justice.

So if you’re wondering about the state of humanity, look for something beautiful in your life.  When will Watson be able to see that, let alone feel it?  That’s something computers will never understand or appreciate.  And that makes me feel pretty good about humanity.  Now, if only I could beat my computer at chess.