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Massachusetts
Global 'chess boom' ripples through western Massachusetts
Normally, Alex Cespedes’ classroom is filled with fourth and fifth graders learning science and social studies. But on Thursdays, after classes let out, students at McMahon Elementary School in Holyoke, Massachusetts, pour into the room for a different reason: to do battle.
“That’s actually a very good move,” Rodman Parvin, who co-facilitates the after-school club the kids are all excited about, explained to two students on an afternoon in early May. “Because now it’s check again. And it’s a double attack.”
This is the Cheetah Chess Club, which Cespedes and Parvin started earlier this year. Despite the spring weather coaxing students outdoors, 16 kids showed up that day to push pawns, rooks, knights, bishops, queens and kings around the board. For some players, like Nicole Davis, chess is new. She and fellow fifth grader Tae’la Feliciano are moving pieces across the board, not worried too much about the rules. Others have been playing longer, like fifth grader JJ Rodriguez. He can confidently explain why he plays the Dutch Defense with the black pieces.
“The rook, bishop and knight are all lined up on the inside,” he said. “Because they are the stronger pieces.”
‘Like a virus right now’
In recent years, there has been an upswell in worldwide interest in chess. For example, the website Chess.com’s servers repeatedly crashed last year under the weight of millions of new players gravitating to the game. It’s a trend that started in 2020 with COVID lockdowns and the hit Netflix show “The Queen’s Gambit,” and has continued as chess influencers get big on social media.
And that global “chess boom” has sent shockwaves through western Massachusetts, too, including at McMahon Elementary.
“It’s kind of like a virus right now,” Cespedes said, who sees students playing everywhere in school now. “If there’s any still or free time, they’re like, ‘Can I have the chess set? I will protect it with my life. I just want to play chess with my friends.’ And beat all the teachers. That’s what they really want to do.”
Chess clubs in local libraries and other schools have grown in size, too. Sophie Argetsinger is the parent of a second grader at Northampton’s Lander-Grinspoon Academy. She grew up in the vibrant chess scene in Rochester, New York. So when Lander-Grinspoon approached her last year about running a chess club at the school, she was excited.
“The first time I held it there was like 20 kids who signed up, which is crazy because there’s only about 60 kids at the school in total,” she said.
Those numbers have shrunk a bit. But Argetsinger has organized two tournaments at the school in the past year and more students than she expected — from around the region — turned up to play.
“That might have a lot to do with the online presence,” she said of the game’s growing popularity locally. “There’s a lot of chess creators now that are making chess kind of cool and something everyone can engage with.”
‘They thought it was a nerdy thing’
Ed Kostreba has been organizing chess tournaments in the region for around a quarter century. He directs the Western Massachusetts Chess Association, which last year had 308 people play in its tournaments. That’s more than any year since 1996, the year the world’s media focused its attention on Russian grandmaster Gary Kasparov as he beat the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue — a quaint notion nowadays, when computers are much stronger players than humans.
Kostreba said, back then, the association used to hold around six tournaments a year. That number has now doubled. He is hoping for even more growth in the coming years. However, he and others say there are challenges to keeping chess thriving locally.
“It’s tough because you have to get venues that are reasonable,” Kostreba said. “I’m working on a tournament where we collect entry fees, and paying back 80% as prizes. So that’s tough to do, and at some places the rents have gone way up and we can’t do it.”
On a recent afternoon, Kostreba was playing chess at the Friends of the Homeless shelter in Springfield, where he volunteers weekly
Sitting across the board from Kostreba was Jay Williams, who has been playing chess for 25 years. He originally learned the game in the correctional system and says he has seen more people playing in recent years — and a more diverse group of players, too.
“A lot of people are definitely interested in chess,” Williams said between moves. “I would say when I was young in junior high school, people wasn’t really all that. They thought it was a nerdy thing. But now I would say it’s a cool thing now.”
Fierce competition
The chess boom has also hit home — for me. After decades away from the game, I found myself returning to it during the pandemic. And somebody else in my family took notice: my 6-year-old daughter, Sasha. She kept seeing me playing on my phone and computer and soon insisted I teach her.
If I had guessed, I would have said she fell in love with chess because of the game’s beauty. The stunning tactics and complicated dance between pieces. But when I asked her, it was much more simple.
“Winning against Daddy,” she said with a big laugh. “The guy who always losed against me.”
This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally published by New England Public Media.
Technology
A new report estimates 7.35% of jobs in Massachusetts are at risk of displacement from artificial intelligence, the highest share in the nation.
A new Tufts University study finds that Massachusetts is the most vulnerable state in the nation to job disruption from artificial intelligence — a shift researchers say could reshape the state’s workforce and economy.
The report, “Will Wired Belts Become the New Rust Belts? AI and the Emerging Geography of American Job Risk,” released in March, estimates that 7.35% of jobs in Massachusetts are at risk of displacement in the near term due to artificial intelligence, the highest among U.S. states. Boston, one of the nation’s leading innovation hubs, is also among the most exposed cities, with an estimated $20 billion in annual income losses tied to AI-driven job disruption.
“The jobs loss will be among more educated, typically higher-paying jobs,” said Christina Filipovic, head of research at Digital Planet, the research center at Tufts’ Fletcher School that completed the study. That distinction marks a stark departure from past waves of automation, which primarily displaced lower-wage, manual labor workers.
Which jobs are most at risk?
The report finds that AI exposure — or how much AI tools can reach or influence a job — is highest in occupations centered around data, analytical or language-based skills, and cognition — the same kinds of knowledge work that dominate Boston’s economy.
AI job vulnerability, by comparison, goes a step further: it measures how likely AI exposure will lead to job loss or major restructuring.
Highly vulnerable roles in Greater Boston include: software developers, market research analysts and marketing specialists, management analysts, and customer service representatives. Software developers alone could see more than 12,700 jobs affected in the Greater Boston region.
Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at The Fletcher School, describes the moment as a paradox: “The occupations that are seeing the greatest productivity boosts are also the occupations that are seeing the greatest job risk, and Boston is high in all those areas,” he said.
“Boston is really interesting. It’s almost a Petri dish for how AI is going to increase productivity and also potentially change the way people do work and maybe displace a certain proportion of people,” Chakravorti said.
On the other end, jobs least exposed to AI include roles like cement masons and concrete finishers, cooks, ship engineers, and ambulance drivers — positions that rely more on physical labor than cognitive tasks.
Why Massachusetts stands out
Researchers point to the structure of Massachusetts’ economy as a key reason for its high exposure. The state’s concentration of universities, tech firms, and innovation mean a large share of workers are employed in highly educated, knowledge-based roles susceptible to AI.
“In addition to the high education levels, Boston in particular is such an innovative city … a lot of the tech industry that’s in the area makes Massachusetts a bit more vulnerable,” Filipovic said.
Chakravorti added that the region’s role as a hub for education and research puts it at the center of the transition.
“Boston right now is at the cutting edge of figuring out how much AI to use in the classroom in order to prepare students for jobs that are going to include and involve AI,” he said.
A warning sign for the nation
The implications of AI’s arrival extend far beyond Massachusetts.
The report estimates that nationwide, between 9.3 million and 19.5 million jobs are at risk of being replaced by AI, with up to $1.5 trillion in annual income loss.
The report identified a group of “Wired Belt” regions — including cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix — that could face similar job disruptions.
“In many ways, Boston is a canary in the coal mine, and we’ll see similar things playing out in knowledge-intensive cities,” Chakravorti said.
The researchers say the goal of the report is not just to measure risk, but to prompt legislative and societal action.
“What we were most curious about was the nature of job loss … and then also to help policymakers at various levels figure out what the best path is forward,” Filipovic said.
Chakravorti was more blunt about the urgency for the city and state to meet the moment.
“We are watching this hurricane hit us … and we are largely sitting on our hands in terms of doing something about it,” he said.
Is your job vulnerable to AI?
Massachusetts
Inside the Massachusetts courtroom where former students face a teacher charged with rape
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The women said they were frightened, but they didn’t show it Wednesday in a Massachusetts courtroom as they watched the teacher who allegedly preyed on them when they were students at the posh Miss Hall’s School plead not guilty to rape.
There is a heavy police presence in a section of Tewksbury, Massachusetts, on Wednesday afternoon due to what authorities are describing only as an “ongoing incident.”
“There is currently a heavy police presence on Salem Road due to an ongoing incident,” Tewksbury police said in a social media post just before 1 p.m. “Motorists are advised to avoid the area and seek alternate routes if possible. Please allow emergency personnel the space they need to respond safely and efficiently”
No further details were released. Police said they will provide updates as more information becomes available.
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