When IBM announced the wimpout, spokeswoman Melinda McMullen said that the company didn't see fit to continue with chess games because it has so much more important stuff to do. Its other uses include such noble ones as designing new pharmaceuticals and keeping track of the American nuclear arsenal, Dutkowsky noted. These potential moves include when to try to get a customer to take on more debt, when to press for payments and what sort of ads to enclose with the bill and much more.ĭeep Blue's promise transcends merely packing the steerage seats in airplanes and spotting deadbeats and hot prospects for credit cards, of course. Sears can track paying patterns and buying habits of millions of customers already stored in the company's enormous databases and then use Deep Blue to choose on the fly from an enormously complex set of possible moves.
Thus a potential customer might call at one time and be told that no cut-rate or frequent-flier seats are available and then call back later and get a deal as Deep Blue plays the game of loading the flight just like it plays a game on the chess board.Īt Sears something quite similar is done using Deep Blue to manage credit card policy on a customer-by-customer basis, Dutkowsky explained. This means, he acknowledged, that as the plane is filled, the number of special-price seats goes up and down in real time.
With the enormously complex variables that come into play as a couple hundred people book travel at all kinds of different ticket prices for the same trip, Deep Blue allows the airline to sell the maximum number of full-fare seats but also to close deals on cheap seats to fill every place, Dutkowsky said. Just as one chess player must look well ahead when an opponent moves so much as a single pawn, an airline must look ahead from the time the first seat is sold.ĭeep Blue keeps track as every travel agent or customer tries to book a seat on a given flight and then makes seats available at different price plans and locations in the fuselage in a way to make sure that the company reaps the most money possible with each flight, Dutkowsky explained. Instead of pondering what to do when Kasparov moves a rook, the UAL Deep Blue ponders what to do when Joe Six-Pack buys a seat.
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