Chess: A Hypothetical Question

If you had the chance, would you prefer a world with chess engines, or no chess engines?

And why.

Coincidentally, yesterday a friend asked me if I could change exactly one thing in chess, what would it be? I told him that I would travel back in time and prevent the invention of chess engines and NNUEs. Why? Because the line between human play and engine play is starting to blur at the highest levels of (non-ICCF) correspondence chess. I have to extensively vet all my corr. opponents to minimise the chance of playing an engine. And, honestly, I also wish that some gambits remained without a hard refutation.

I'd prefer a world with chess engines. I use engines everyday to check my post game analysis and see what I have missed. Chess engines are not the problem, cheats are the problem. Cheating is a character flaw and I have absolutely no idea how to tackle it. But I would say to those that have been cheated (all of us!) that they get more from playing a player that cheated, as they play an artificially stronger player, than the cheat gets out of cheating, as they learn nothing from being told the best moves by a machine.

So I'd prefer a world without cheats!

No engines. It would make chess more 'mysterious' IMO. And engines have also killed the practice of adjourning games, which would be interesting...

Engines have democratised chess. Anyone can now get objective high quality analysis of any position for free. Whether you understand the evaluation or not is another matter but certainly it has improved tactical awareness. Try reading a pre engine chess book and you're likely to find analytical errors.
On the flip side, engines have killed some areas of chess. Adjournments in OTB chess have disappeared. ICCF correspondence chess has become engine v engine with a high proportion of draws.

i'd prefer a world with more sophisticated engines, that could explain a position in a human language like a GM do.

I am conflicted about this topic.

One on hand, I can't stand them. They have destroyed Correspondence Chess. The only reason the ICCF have allowed their use is because they are unable to police not using them. A sad commentary on human nature. The thought of using a chess engine for correspondence play infuriates me.

But, on the other hand, they are a wonderful aid in analyzing your own games. I remember the first chess engine I ever used. I think it was called, 'Extreme Chess'. It used the chess engine Fritz 3, I think. I remember the first time I put it on infinite analysis. I was utterly fascinated watching it think and going through all of it's variations as it processed the position.

One last thought. the consensus here seems to be that nobody wants to play correspondence because their afraid that their opponents will be using a chess engine to help them play. I've played here since 2019, and I've played on another site which specializes in correspondence play for 23 years. In all that time, I have never encountered anyone cheating. Now you may say that some of them could have cheated without me knowing about it. That is possible, but I have never suspected anybody of cheating. Cheaters are by nature very impatient. They want to accumulate as many ELO points in rating as they can. Correspondence is just to slow for them.

Yes chess engines. They are cool.

If you had the chance, would you prefer a world with chess engines, or no chess engines?

And why.

A world with chess engines is better for me personally.
Training without engines means I would miss out lots of things and not even understand that I missed anything.
Let alone tons of chess compositions that would be refuted after months or years just because a simple 5 second computer analysis were impossible.
Especially but not only for artificially created endgames with a unique objective solution (so not only studies but almost all fields of chess compositions) engines are great to tell objective truth in less than a minute.

So choice a) Humans need super-healthy brains and years of training to maybe sometimes get to objective truth in chess and cheating is literally impossible with any electronic device because of some weird characteristics of our physical world in a fictional universe.

Choice b) Any human can have delivered objective truth about almost any chess position or chess game in almost no time.
Cheating in chess is easy with any modern computer.

What I want in chess is choice b: Objective truth that anyone shall be able to discover, no matter if their health is good or bad.
Metaphorical bitter pill that I have to swallow: The objective truth in chess to which I want easy access for myself and for anyone else can be used against me and against anyone else in an unethical way.