What Chess Engines Teach Us About AI and Human Knowledge

Fabiano Caruana recently pointed out something fascinating about modern chess: today’s elite 14-year-olds aren’t just talented — they’re armed with engines.

With Stockfish, they can instantly tell whether an opening is sound, dubious, or outright losing. What used to take years of painful trial-and-error now takes minutes. When Fabi was growing up, even top juniors would simply get worse positions out of the opening against elite players because they lacked theoretical knowledge. Closing that gap used to take until 18 or later. Now it happens much earlier.

So what changed? Not just skill — tools.

In this video, I use Caruana’s example to think about a philosophical question:

If epistemology is about cognitive success, what role should AI play in a virtuous thinker’s life?

Should we treat AI like chess players treat engines — as training partners and error detectors?

Or does outsourcing judgment risk weakening our intellectual virtues?

I argue that AI likely has a legitimate role in virtuous cognition… but the long-term effects of cognitive offloading are still an open question.

Chess, engines, and virtue epistemology collide.