Queen of Chess: AI Hit Me 30 Years Ago. What Schools Can Learn.

✨ Special Episode ✨

Judit Polgar is the greatest female chess player in history. She beat Gary Kasparov in his prime, and As a junior, she outranked Demis Hassabis, the man who now runs Google DeepMind. She's the star of the new Netflix documentary Queen of Chess. She watched AI tear through her profession thirty years ago and her warning to educators is one we cannot afford to ignore.

● She lived AI's revolution 30 years before us

● The computer told her to win, she lost

● AI gives passive knowledge, experiences knowledge is needed

● Schools are destroying kids who are different

● Intuition comes from experience AI can't replace

00:34 Meet Judit Polgár: Queen of Chess

01:03 From Champion to Educator: Why Classrooms?

02:21 The Chess Palace Programme & Learning Through Play

04:04 Chess: The Original Testing Ground for AI

04:57 What Teachers Are Feeling Right Now

06:16 The Day She Trusted the Computer and Lost the Game

07:26 An Earthquake in the Classroom

08:43 Re-evaluating What Teachers Bring to the Room

09:43 Her Father's Bold Claim: Can Any Child Be Exceptional?

12:25 Adversity, Setbacks & Teaching Failure

14:36 A Week-Long Journey Into Mistakes

16:13 The Sycophantic AI Problem: Why Kids Need Rejection

17:06 Critical Thinking When Real and Fake Blur

19:17 What Schools Still Haven't Learned

20:46 Human Connection Over Frontal Learning

23:13 The Problem with 50-Minute Subject Blocks

24:52 Over-Reliance on AI & The Danger to Intuition

27:23 Why Chatbot Answers Are "Worse Than Nothing"

28:36 The 10/90 Rule: Knowing the Move vs. Understanding Why

30:49 Navigating the Messy Middle as a Leader

32:35 Bravery, Mistakes & Cutting Through the Jungle

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's like an earthquake going on and you don't know where you're landing and what is going to be here and what is going to be gone forever. AI and chatbots are incredibly dangerous for youngsters. I trusted the computer. I ignored this draw possibility where we split the point. So I was moving out with my king. I said I have to move forward. The position is winning, right? I lost the game. You suffer, you cry. It's painful, but it's the process. It's part of it.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

She's the greatest female chess player in history. She beat Gary Kasparov in his prime. And as a junior, she outranked Demis Hasebas, the man who now runs Google Deep Mind. She's the star of the new Netflix documentary Queen of Chess. And she watched AI tear through her profession 30 years ago. And her warning to educators is one we cannot afford to ignore. Please welcome my guest, Judith Polgar. I I guess a lot of people uh know you, or if they didn't know you, now know you from Netflix as the greatest female chess player in history. Uh, but for the last decade you've poured your energy into transforming how children learn. Um what did you see in classrooms that made you say, well, this is where I need to be, this is where my the focus of my work needs to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Basically, I grew up uh in a chess family, and I learned so much uh on my own by doing so, how much chess can benefit kids' uh structured thinking. And of course, I had my own kids uh growing into kindergarten age, and I started to see uh how kids are learning, and I speak with parents, and uh and understanding that there are a lot of challenges in the classroom for teachers. And uh we started to build uh a chess program, and then it we started to grow it bigger, bigger, and more and more ideas. And uh what was very clear that it's very difficult for for kids also to be engaged, and it's of course very difficult for teachers to make them engaged, to keep them curious, to keep them busy, keep them uh asking questions. And that's how we started to build the the Chess Palace program, which involves many tens of thousands of kids every year, because we believe that that kids need playfulness, learning, keeping their curiosity, because actually it depends on them, right, in many ways. So if you create a framework where they can play endlessly, and also the the smarter kids and the the less smarter kids can also combine and play together, or even one who has more uh willingness to have more puzzles, more thinking, they have that opportunity as well. So that's how we created the program, and and I'm happy. That's how I grew up the the playfulness and learning by playing. It's it's a very big thing. And uh, and of course, in this gadgets and digital age, it's a huge challenge for teachers, and of course, also how schools, what are their budgets, possibilities in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah, I think that's a lot of my work at the minute is trying to get that message across of how do we facilitate curiosity? Because I think curiosity then then allows our kids to to take agency as well over their own lives and over their own learning, and and I guess that's something that can't be given. You've got to take it for yourself, like like you say, a lot of the work has to come from the this the student, and and how do we create those environments in our exactly, exactly. Yeah, I I think uh you know, uh shifting the conversation a little bit to towards AI and kind of everything that AI is doing in our world at the moment. I suppose for for you, chess has always been uh historically the testing ground for artificial intelligence, um, from Alan Turin in the n in the 50s to Deep Blue in the 90s with Kasparov. Uh and you grew up and and and uh could be argued at the height of your chess career during that revolution. Um I suppose being there through chess's AI moment, if you want to put it that way, um what what has it taught you about um what schools haven't yet figured out about their own AI moment that they're kind of going through right now?

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Well, uh I know I remember myself how much I struggled personally when uh chess engines AI uh uh approach to my chess preparation, and actually I'm seeing the same problems, the same fear, the same worry, the same dilemmas, the same insecurity feeling in in the in the society, but of course it goes into the classroom, of course, it goes into the the mind of the teachers that oh my God, what is going to be? I'm going to be replaced. I I'm not needed anymore. And of course, there's very few worse feelings than that, that you're not needed anymore. And uh the way I uh grow into this AI and and machine into my career, it was of course very painful at some moments because I trusted at some point I said, okay, it's talk stupid things. Then it became better. I said, okay, it does make sense. And then later I saw that everybody's using it, the idea. So how the engine works in chess, it gives suggested moves, alternatives, seemingly the best move it can offer, the first or second and third moves, but it also gives an evaluation next to it, which makes it very tricky. And it happened with me also that once after using it for many, many weeks and months and years already, I said, okay, so I can trust it. And then I thought I went to the game, I made my preparation with the engine, I went there, I thought if this position will be standing on the board, I'm going to be winning with the home preparation. I go to the game, my opponent makes a reaction, and then I'm thinking, well, I see I should make a draw, but the computers told me that I'm winning. So who should you trust? I trusted the computer, I ignored this draw possibility where we split the point. So I was moving out with my king. I said, I have to move forward, the position is winning, right? I lost the game. So, of course, after that, I was very much pissed off on the company. And I lost my trust. So I think this is what's happening also from some point of view for the teachers that they are very much afraid, they keep distance, it's very unpleasant. Is it smarter than me? Then I try to trust them because my work is faster. But okay, the kids can use it, then they are cheating, but they don't understand what it is. So I think the confusion is the is the best word to say, the instability, the insecurity this feeling, which it's like an earthquake going on. And you don't know where you're landing and what is cracking, and what is going to be here, and what is going to be gone forever. And it's a very difficult, uh, you have to be mentally very strong to be able to accept this. But I think for those teachers who are uh saying, okay, let's go with the flow, let's take the opportunity, but they have to be extremely strong mentally, I think. And we also need time, and we also need the collaborations, cooperations, and we have to admit that now what our strengths was, we need different strengths, different skills, different skill set, different understanding. So now it comes how strong you as a personality is. So it's it's a huge transformation, not only in the in the classroom, but also for a teacher themselves as human beings, I think they have to re-evaluate their strengths and their personality and their role and how to help kids, how to make a better society, right? Yeah, how to make people with with common sense but using modern technology to make it better.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Yeah, and I I think as somebody who who has seen all of this happen 30 years ago, um it's amazing to see that insight, I think. And I think so. A lot of us think this is all new, this is this is kind of the first time this has happened, and we're trying to figure it out, but actually your your profession went through that 30 years ago, and I think there's so much there we can learn. You your we've we've touched on a little bit what what your father did with with you and your sisters and your family, and how he kind of took you out of the school system and and raised you to be chess prodigies from a from a very early age. And and his central claim was that any healthy child taught early and intensively can become exceptional in any field. Uh, sitting where you are now as a mother and as an educator now yourself, how much of that do you still believe?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I grew up in a very special environment where indeed my uh starting with the idea of my father, and my mother obviously was the best partnership he could have in doing this uh this special lifestyle by doing this experiment that we were homeschooled and focusing on one specific field. For me, it was good. For me, I'm very grateful and happy that my life turned out this way. Uh I do believe that work pays off, but I think that these days you have to work very differently, and you have to approach things in a very different way. Because uh in those times, then my father said, okay, you you focus on something, you're going to be the best at it, and uh you're going to be happy because you're great, you're going to have a financial stability, and you're going to be a happy person. But these days, of course, you can focus on something, but still you need skills that it's inevitable, or I don't know if I said it right. Like you have to have it in order to be successful and to be able to progress.

unknown 11:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Like you have to have this uh empathy, you have to have emotional intelligence for working in groups, managing your life, being in teams, uh admitting your mistakes and be okay with that, right? So so you need a little different uh approach to it. You you have to be more uh more uh complex, even though if you're you're focusing on something. But I do believe in work and I do believe in in uh in perseverance, that if you start something you you should not give up. Um and that is important, but it's also just as important in what kind of environment you're creating for yourself or for your kids.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah. Yeah, you just reminded me about I mean, you know that like the people who are the most successful in life have gone through the most failure. And and I suppose the doc your documentary on Netflix kind of showed a lot of that. You there was a lot of adversity, the the fact that you couldn't you couldn't play within the the men's leagues at first, then you couldn't you you couldn't leave your country to play, then then the whole debacle with Kasparov, the the the cheating moment, and and and all all of like it's uh and obviously the documentary sets it up that way because it's telling telling it's it's there's a narrative, but it's really clear that you went through a lot of adversity and a lot of setback and a lot of challenges to become successful. Um and I I I guess how how do we how do we teach that life lesson to kids at an early age? Because I suppose you had that, I guess, because playing game playing chess from an early age, you it's just part of playing games, isn't it? You've got to you're gonna lose a lot before you start winning. Um how do we how do we bring that into the classroom? How do we how do we let our students become successful um through that journey at an early age? I don't know if that's a I don't even know if that's a question for you, but I'm just it's just what I'm thinking at the moment. How do we how do we uh facilitate?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

You know, you know, it's uh I'm always continuingly thinking and I'm speaking with with smart uh innovational people like you also, and and uh here also in Warsaw where I am, there were questions, how how to do things. And I think that one of the ways to to turn it into benefits of the challenges, that of course I was raised in a very different way than than people generally people, because I was focused not for one day, not for one week, not for one month, not for one year, but for decades. So that's a completely different story. At the same time, as I believe in focused and concentrated intense learning, I think that it's possible to bring it in the classroom, let's say for a week. That you know what, guys, kids, this time, this week, we are going to go on a journey of mistakes. How do we learn from setbacks? You know, and let's take the journey and let's see how from nothing you reach somewhere, not much maybe, but you had failing, failing, failing, failing. So maybe we should teach kids how to benefit from the bad, from the difficult. Because I do believe this is what I say to my kids also that no matter how harsh life is on you, you you fail in an exam, something happens very differently than you planned. Trust me, you suffer, you cry, it's painful, but it's the process, it's part of it, and actually, because it's part of it, when you're going to be do something which is very um big result, very uh big achievement, it tastes 10 times better after the setback you had. So somehow I think to integrate mistake and failure into as part of the recipe of success.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah. And I do you know, I think that's one of the big dangers of AI because the way AI chatbots work now are very they're very sycophantic. They tell you, yes, that's a brilliant idea. That's yes, you are on the right track, you are doing it right, you are and actually we we need rejection. We need people to say that's a really bad idea, or or actually, have you thought about it from this point of view? And I think uh my one of my big worries about AI is if we have a generation of young people going into the world who have haven't had much rejection, who haven't been forced to to reiterate their ideas and think differently and have setbacks, but because they've interacted with AI so much, it's just told them, yes, you're right consistently, that they're in for a real big downfall once they they kind of get into that quote-unquote real-world scenario.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I think critical thinking is essential, it's it's something that it should be trained from a very young age. Because these days we don't know what is real and what is fake. And the new generation, let's say the kids who are in kindergarten now, I mean, they have absolutely no idea. They have they will have a very different understanding of the word fake. Because the way they grow up, for them it's real, right? Yeah I mean, why do we say that it's not real if it's on the screen? Why do we say it's not real if it's there? I mean, what's the difference for a kid that was that fish designed by a lance of a camera or an AI? It's even nicer than with the camera. So it's one alternative for them. It's real. And in the picture, maybe it's not a problem, but with news, it's a problem. With relationships, it's a problem. Right? There are some things where it is a serious problem if it's not real. In some things, it's not a problem, it's entertainment, it's part of my life, whatever. It doesn't affect my work, it doesn't affect my financial status, it doesn't affect, okay, it can be even funny. But I think the critical thinking, and actually I go back to chess, that's where I come from. Critical thinking is something that's why I think chess is incredibly well to be integrated into the classroom as a game, as a way of thinking skills, creating your structures thinking, your uh understanding of logic, of analytical skills, understanding mistakes, uh understanding sacrifice for something higher price, uh and critical thinking. It's so important.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Yeah. What do you think? What what did your your father get right that you still think schools haven't learned yet?

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Well, I think the basic, the reason why he wanted us to go to to to be homeschooled, that schools are not efficient. They are not focusing neither on the the kids' emotional stability, neither on the academic learning. It's only focusing or mainly focusing on how do you fit into the society, which actually of course it's I understand. I understand what's the purpose uh in many ways. But what I experience through my kids and through my program and through talking with the with hundreds of teachers and psychologists and experts, it's a problem. First of all, it's very much uh destroys the kids who are different, not the very average. Secondly, these days you don't have average, I think. You have completely different kids designed due to this ridiculous, awful, painful, horrible social media. I mean, it's just uh they they force kids to be addicted. And uh and they these are a lot, a lot of uh problems. So schools probably have to get make an environment where human connections are in in the forefront because those are the most important thing. I mean, knowledge can be reached in a second, right, for a kid from the their phones. So that's not important. The important is the human connection, the understanding, the critical thinking, how to rebuild yourself, rebuild your thinking. I mean, I think this is one of the biggest problems in AI researchers, they say, how to pick the right question and the right angle because you go in the wrong angle, you waste time, energy, and hell of a lot of money. So you have to be critical. You have to admit, I made the mistake. In chess, it goes all the time. You know, I make I cannot play a full perfect game. I make mistakes, and then I have to admit, you know, I made my planning. Sorry, it's not good. I have to admit, and everybody sees it, that she made the move which did not make sense, she has to go back, admitting your mistakes. So those are the social and human things I think in schools, what you You can give. But it's not about sitting down and giving the lecture about mathematics for make the kids tired and having breaks after every 45 minutes, sitting down a frontal way of learning. No, you can be learning by climbing, you can be learning by doing arts, you can be learning being there and having a discussion. And it's okay to eat, maybe, or drink in the meantime. So the human connection, I think, that's the most important. And teamwork and how to relate to problems. Because nowadays, what I feel, generally people want to avoid problems. They don't clash with different opinions or with people. So it's very important to handle those because, of course, you have an opinion, I have an opinion. But it it takes uh a background and understanding and intelligence and many other things to sit down and be able to talk it over. And maybe I convince you, maybe you convince me, maybe we stand up and we still both have different opinions about that.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Yeah. Yeah, you remind me there's there's a there's a great educator called uh John Gatto from New York, um, who he he's he died now, but in the in the 90s he wrote an essay about the the dangers of of kind of schooling and and he talked about how and and I think you're saying it perfectly as well that actually when we when we have separate subjects one after another in the day and we go right now you're gonna focus for 50 minutes on this topic, and then you're gonna stop, and now you've got to go to another topic which is completely different, and now suddenly get your mind into that and focus on that, and then you do that five times a day, five days a week. Um, there's no kind of long or even mid mid- uh length pro like really getting to grips with a problem and spending all day on it or all week on it. Um, and I think for me, when I when I hear about kind of how you were trained and what your father did with you when you were you were young, I'm like for me that's that seems to be the golden thread here. That that that kind of no, we're gonna work, we're gonna work on this issue no matter how long it takes, no matter um we're not gonna we're not gonna the time isn't gonna limit us. It's it's it's gonna be the problem and the solution that's gonna be the the thing that drives the how much time we take on this.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Patience is also a very important uh part, which very few have.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Yeah, and we're not we're not uh we're not helping that, I think. We're not helping that with how we we do it. I I I think you you you've kind of touched upon this a little bit about how the over-rely in some machines, and I guess from from the 90s and and and the the the infiltration of AI in chess and and kind of you I suppose there's a lot of educators who are now worried about students over relying on AI. Um and you you talk a lot about how actually your intuition has to has to be above the the the AI and the reliance and and you've kind of touched on a little bit on that already. Um how how from your experience, how are how do students approach AI in terms of over reliance, um, and so that the their intuition remains the essential part and their authentic self is comes out, and it's not just them as a an agent of an AI, almost living out the AI's instructions or or work in real life, um, which I'm sure you've probably seen in many forms in in chess, but it's it's the actual human, it's their genuine authenticity and in intuition that is actually staying um paramount in all of this.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Well, intuition is a tricky thing. My experience for me, I always felt that intuition is very important in chess, but I get my intuition through my experience, and uh and many times I think that this is the biggest danger for youth, that they don't have the experience because they don't spend enough time. And in many uh school systems, they are completely overloaded with too many things, which is not necessarily so important for them. So they don't have enough knowledge in order to have good intuition, and uh and of course, AI and chatbots are incredibly dangerous for youngsters. And I'm always afraid continuously that like the brain is not even ready for them, but they take it up, put it on the table, and the chatbot is in their head. And uh there are many problems with that. Uh the first thing with chatbots, we have to make it clear that it's one thing that let's say it gives you the best answer, okay? Let's say it's not hallucinating, let's say it's not lying completely, let's say it gives you the right answer. The problem is it's too perfect. We say, Oh wow, this is great. But that's a passive knowledge. It doesn't tell you that now, if you think I'm right, if you think this knowledge is important for you, now we did this work with you in 15 minutes. Now spend five hours to understand it and to practice it. And of course, if you cannot practice it, if you don't understand it yourself, you can't integrate it into your your vision, your understanding, your thinking of the way you think, it's nothing. It's not even nothing, it's worse than nothing because you think you know it, but you don't know it, and you're frustrated that how come I don't know it when I saw it, I read it, I should know it. So it's a very big trick. This happens very often, also. I bring my example from chess, that it happens with many youngsters that let's say they they uh work on an opening and they just press the button. What the engine says, night of three, c5, great, queen f5, I'm pushing the button, I know it. I go to play the tournament, I'm flashing out like I'm cool, I know everything. I'm playing the first nine moves or 12 moves, and after that I'm on my own. And then they have the question: why am I better? What plan do I have? How can I prove it to my opponent that I'm really better? Where do I have to put my pieces? What how do I have to behave? I have no idea. So the first thing they do, they start think for like 20 minutes if they have the time, to try to understand where they are. It's like, you know, they just drop you in one place in a new city you don't know, and you're just trying to get familiar things to understand what is what around you. This is exactly what happens in in chess preparation many times. This is why I'm when I'm teaching, I'm telling them to know what is the good move is 10%. You need the 90% to understand why that move is good. And it's the same thing with the chatbots, it's very fast. Ah, I have the solution, but you don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Understanding of things are so essential, and with chatbots, it's so much pushed away, neglected. And this is something very, very important. And this is also something I think schools can help to to not only the human connection, but somehow to understand that you have a tool, it can make it, but you have to do the the rest of the work, maybe smaller or bigger, whatever. But one thing is sure, you have to put your own share into the to complete the success.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Yeah. I think the world that we're in now, um, I think we we need bold educational leaders to more than we've more than we've ever needed them before. And I think a big part of that is the strategy. And I and you know what? I you said something to me when we met in Budapest, um, I remember at dinner, and it really it really captured my imagination. I and um I'm gonna try and paraphrase it, so forgive me if I get it wrong, but you you said something like um average chess players work really well at their opening moves, um, good chess players also work well at their their end game, but the best chess players um practice and practice and practice also the the middle game, that messy, that messy middle. And I think a lot of the time in in strategy, and I work a lot with educational leaders, getting things going, getting the initiative started, um, is the easy part. You've got a little bit of momentum, you've got enthusiasm, um, knowing where you want to be, maybe five years' time, how you want things to change, is is it requires a bit of vision, requires a bit of wisdom and experience. That's okay. But the middle bit, how would you actually get from the start to the end in a world that is firstly changing continuously at the moment? Um, and you just can't predict, and it's gonna require courage, it's gonna require um from what you've learned as as literally one of the the greatest strategists that that chess has ever seen. Um, how do we navigate that messy middle as educational leaders?

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Well, I guess we we need people who are very much engaged and feel the problem, the urge of changing and being there as uh as really the makers. Because uh, of course, it it's it's completely true. I agree with you that uh there are the decision makers who say, okay, we want to do something, there are experts who say which direction to go and what is the path. But of course, you need people who work on it day by day. But those people have to be also supported very much. That they should be not only allowed but forced to make mistakes because this road is completely new. We are in a jungle, there is a way out from it, but we have no idea which path to go. So you have your machetta, you're cutting, you see, oh my god, no, this is not the way. So you go another way and another way and another way. So the most important thing I think is dedication, perseverance, never give up, just understand that it's continuously changing, as you say, uh and do it. And adjust ourselves with our common sense, with the feedbacks of the kids, feedbacks of the parents, that which direction is good? And testing and researching, not because we want to test the kids necessarily, but to understand ourselves that are we on the good path? Do we have the good outcome out of those courses, out of those new setups in the classroom? Does it work? Not because we want to criticize the teacher, not because we want to criticize the kids, it's because we have to make this testing and research and follow the data to understand it for the leaders, for the people, how to adjust the course, how intensive should it be, how uh different impact it has for different kinds of kids, right? So bravery is very important. And it's very important that uh that the people who are on this road are appreciated and not criticized that. Oh, you're doing something, but it's not good. You don't know where you're going, right? Tell me the answer. There is no answer. There is a will that we want to do it better, and I think that's already a big thing. If we find those people who say, I want to do it better, I want to do it in a way that the kids are more healthy in their brain, in their in their body, in their approach, in their understanding, to give them purpose, to understand that they have to do something, not only because they have to do something, but because it gives them a good feeling to do something, to good do good, to learn, to be somebody, to to to make uh uh uh uh make influence things, right? So to empower kids, but we need people who are brave enough to make mistakes and but they want to do for a good cause.

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Yeah.

unknown 35:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Judith Polgoff, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. It was amazing to catch up with you again.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Thanks very much.

SPEAKER_01 36:05

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