chess
you're right, strictly speaking AI can't solve a Rübik's Cube, it needs manipulators for that, i.e. a robot. The AI then steers the robot, but saying a robot can solve the Rübik's Cube faster than a human is less spectacular, because it's like saying that a car runs faster than a human: big deal.
The same can be said about playing chess: the actual chess computers can't play regular chess on regular chessboards, they don't have manipulators, they don't even have visual recognition of the chessboard, human assitants do the moving, and the recongnition is entirely absent. Deep-Blue wouldn't have beeten Kasparov if there haven't be a human around to help Deep-Blue, so strictly speeking computers still didn't beet humans at chess.
That computers beat humans on cumputer's playground is logical, but let them try to beat humans on human's playground. Next-step: beat humans without external power supply, running only on batteries, doing the visual recognition and chessboard manipulation. When "computers" can do that, then I'll accept that computers can beat humans at chess.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
