Do you remember that game we played as kids called "20 Questions"? Well now there's an electronic version called "20Q" which won the coveted Toy of the Year Award for 2004. Apparently it utilizes some rudimentary form of AI, Artificial Intelligence.
20Q is small, egg-shaped, has a read-out screen and 4 buttons: "yes" , "no", "sometimes", "not sure". It also speaks! ( that feature can be annoying, fortunately that option can be switched off.
It's also really, really smart.
Or should I say its very well programmed?
I was introduced to it at my friend/KMI Grad Bob Vinson's house during the first Fascial Research Congress at Harvard. He and his son find it ideal for car trips. so we played with it for a while. The way it works is just like the game, you think of something and then answer the questions the machine asks, the first one always being: Is it animal vegetable or mineral?
Thinking I could out-clever the machine I tried: "spaceship". Yeah, that little plastic egg will never get that. Well it did.
It also guessed "wineglass" and "sandbox". So I tried "rose" ("flowers" being too generic). The 20th question from the magic egg read: "Is it a rose?"
Then the obvious hit me – fascia, no way will the eerily magic 20 Questions machine guess that. I proceeded to answer the questions as best I could.
"Animal?" No. "Vegetable?" No.
"Can it be washed?" – Well, no, not really.
"Is it black?" Definite no.
"Is it flexible?" Yes.
"Is it something you bring along?" – Well, sort of, but Bob pointed out that the correct answer as far as the machine's logic was "no" , its not like going to your friend's house for dinner and bring flowers (or a rose), so "no" its not something you bring along.
The sarcastic prompts it sometimes gives between questions were starting to diminish. This little computer was one the ropes now, I could sense its electrons giving off the equivalent of digital sweat.
Finally we got to the 20th question, the guessing question. Certain that it was stumped, we were all floored when 20Q asked:
"Is it the soul?"
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