Yeah, and we shouldn't forget that skilled chess players now rely on memorization of openings and calculation of tactical variations. Large parts of chess reward what we now consider mechanical thinking. After all, isn't all this memorization a boring barrier to entry for many?
AI researchers now consider chess to be one of the easier apps. Earlier, they suspected stuff like chess and passing calculus exams would be the hard part, while facial recognition and seeing what's important in a story would be effortless. But it turns out to be the other way around (as Danny Hillis claims)...
And too bad people are generally alienated from computers. That's a weird topic to its core; for example, software is an infinitely redistributable commodity, but somehow it's often made scarce and maldistributed by wealth. And companies like to see their employees as cogs to plug into their computer systems. I think software design often reflects that desire.
Tayssir