Animal, Vegetable, Mineral - Portable?

Thanks to GameGossip for reprinting a press release announcing Radica's forthcoming portable electronic game called 20Q, licensed from the 20Q.net website. The game seeks to guess an object you're thinking of by asking you 20 questions, starting with "Is it classified as Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Other or Unknown?" The site is billed as "The neural-net on the Internet", and since it's claimed that "20Q.net is a learning system; the more it is played, the smarter it gets", it'll be interesting to see if Radica's portable version tries to incorporate any learning attributes.

Comments

It Can't Work Without It

[Luigi30]

It would lose its edge if it didn't have learning capabilities. Otherwise it would be completely random.

Oldest game ever!

[Anonymous Coward]

This game is the oldest game ever - and its so-called "learning" is the only reason it was ever written. I remember typing this in in BASIC on a Sharp-MZ80K back in the '80s, and it was as old as the hills then because the book I got the listing from was a book of listings for some oddball minicomputer my Mum used to write training software for. What's next, a Slashdot Games article about this thrilling new portable game called "Adventure" that may incorporate exciting natural-language recognition technology?

Re:Oldest game ever!

[darkpurpleblob]

I remember typing this in in BASIC on a Sharp-MZ80K back in the '80s, and it was as old as the hills then because the book I got the listing from was a book of listings for some oddball minicomputer my Mum used to write training software for.

We had to write an learning animal guessing game of this style for an assignment on tree structures for our algorithms and data structures paper at university. Of course with a quick few modifications it was turned into the lecturer guessing game:

Is your lecturer a male?

Yes

Does your lecturer have a beard?

No

Does your lecturer wear shoes?

Yes

Is your lecturer Nigel?

Yes!

Re:Oldest game ever!

[orthogonal]

This game is the oldest game ever.

and not only that, the "learning" isn't anything more adding a discriminator a search tree.

The original used a binary search tree -- each parent question branched to two child nodes, one for "Yes" answers, one for "No" answers.

The version at 20q.net uses a tree where each node has six children (Yes, No, Unknown, Irrelevant, Probably, Doubtful), and makes "guesses" probably based on some accumulation of -- I'm just guessing myself here -- the fuzzier (neither "Yes" nor "No") answers.

So it just classifies human knowledge, and -- big surprise -- it gets "confused" where reasonable people disagree about what attributes the guessed-at object has.

So it's nothing revolutionary technically.

And there's no reason to make it into a single-use portable, given that it could be programmed for any existing portable -- Palm Pilot, Zaurus, Gameboy -- limited only by the size of the database said portable could accommodate. The whole point of Turing machines is that they can be any (programmable) machine -- why this should be a stand-alone, other than because marketing thinks it would sell, I have no idea. (Maybe they can sell stand-alone tic-tac-toe machines too?)

And it's no breakthrough epistemologically: schemes for the classification of all human knowledge have been a hobby-horse of talented zealots at least since the Enlightenment (and come to think of it, wasn't that what St. Thomas Aquinas was up to too?).

Roget's Thesaurus is an example of one of the few classifications of knowledge to actually be useful, but let's not forget various plans by various philosophers to create artificial languages based on "natural" taxonomies of knowledge, or "mathematical" systems encompassing all knowledge, with syntax that would make false statements impossible, and other grandiose plans.

So far, these plans have all foundered on disagreement between reasonable men over what the boundaries and connections between concepts "really" are, and difficulties dealing with different domains of knowledge, to the point that most if not all have had little practical use (Roget's being useful not for its original purpose, an exhaustive classification of everything, but instead as a catalog of synonyms and antonyms best employed by poets and rhetoricians, not scientists or philosophers.)

Of course, just because it's neither new nor particularly noteworthy, does not mean that the US Patent Office might not grant it a patent. But that's another problem altogether.

Re:Oldest game ever!

[Anonymous Coward]

So far, these plans have all foundered on disagreement between reasonable men over what the boundaries and connections between concepts "really" are

Well, 20 Questions usually founders like this:

Is it animal, vegetable or mineral?

Animal.

Is it taller than my Mum?

No.

Sqyugrhnuevuievio?

Yes.

HA HA THIS GAME SUCKS?

No.

Is it a peepee?

No.

What was it?

U R DUM.

Please input a question that would distinguish a peepee from a U R DUM:

0wned.

Re:Oldest game ever!

[Violet Null]

Not to mention that 20Q falls down when a word has more than one meaning. Take, for instance, "transformer"; depending upon your upbringing, you might immediately think "electrical device that changes voltage levels", or, you may think "robot in disguise".

20Q has no way to differentiate the two, and will just swing back and forth between the two confusedly, probably arriving at some weird algamation between the two.

Re:Oldest game ever!

[iocat]

And of course, if you stump it, you get to add a discriminating question. It's very easy to make up questions that while technically true, don't help the learning aspect. (Think "Is it a turnip?" with the answer "no" for the animal "camel".)

Re:Oldest game ever!

[PurpleBob]

and not only that, the "learning" isn't anything more adding a discriminator a search tree.

Have you used 20Q.net? The thing is certainly not the binary-tree-in-BASIC you're thinking of. It gets the right answer before you think it could possibly know. They've tuned this algorithm over several years, and it's smart.

Half interesting

[Althazzar]

This portable version, even with learning features in it, will still be half as nice as the website version, since the web-version can learn from a lot more tries then the portable version.

I love 20Q.net.

[DrEldarion]

I played it years and years ago, and it was okay... it wasn't able to guess a lot of the time. Recently I went back and played again - DAMN! It's gotten REALLY good. It guessed duck-billed platypus, for god's sake!

Re:I love 20Q.net.

[PunchMonkey]

It is neat, but this is what happens when you let "people" fool with the system:

Uncommon Knowledge about a grapefruit
Does it come in different colors? I say Yes.
Would you use it daily? I say Probably.
Is it a predator? I say Probably.
Is it originally from Europe? I say Probably.
Does it have paws? I say Yes.
Is it made from cellulose? I say Probably.
Is it delivered? I say Yes.
Can it growl? I say Yes.
Would you touch it with a 10-foot pole? I say Doubtful.
Was it ever alive? I say No.
Does it come in many varieties? I say Yes.
Is it outside? I say Doubtful.
Is it something you bring along? I say Probably.
Could you send it in the mail? I say Yes.
Is it yellow? I say Yes.
Is it a renewable resource? I say No. .... It's right... I never knew that grapefruit had paws!!!

Re:I love 20Q.net.

[buttahead]

yeah... gotta love those sad killer phone numbers... point claws, geological features, and all:

Uncommon Knowledge about a phone number
Can it be used for recreation? I say Yes.
Do you know any songs about it? I say Yes.
Is it a geological feature? I say Yes.
Does it cry? I say Probably.
Would you find it on a farm? I say Yes.
Can it speak? I say Probably.
Can it add? I say Probably.
Does it have a horn? I say Yes.
Does it have four wheels? I say Probably.
Is it smart? I say Probably.
Can it swim? I say Probably.
Does it have ears? I say Probably.
Do you carry it in your pocket? I say Yes.
Is it a common household object? I say Yes.
Does it have feet? I say Probably.
Does it have claws? I say Yes.

It's really good

[DarkGreenNight]

After the initial training period it allways guesses what I'm thinking about at the first try!

Are you thinking about Angelina Jolie?

Damn! Here it goes again!

No, I haven't RTFA

I'm not sure how...

[presearch]

but it needs a tie-in with Google.

Pangolins

[Chuck Chunder]

I remember typing this in from the manual for my Sinclair ZX spectrum. I'm sure it was quite exciting at the time but it doesn't seem to have much more than nostalgia value these days.

its borken

[ArmorFiend]

The entire point of 20 questions is that they have to be yes/no questions. These guys break that rule on their first question, "Is it classified as Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Other or Unknown?". If one is allowed to break the rules in this way, then the first question should always be: "What is it?", followed immediately by victory for the questioner.

Re:its borken

[zsazsa]

The entire point of 20 questions is that they have to be yes/no questions. These guys break that rule on their first question, "Is it classified as Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Other or Unknown?"

I don't know about you, but the traditional 'first question' in 20 questions is the "animal, vegetable, or mineral" question. Granted, they stretch it a bit by adding Other and Unknown, but it's still in the traditional spirit of the game.

Re:its borken

[ArmorFiend]

If we can stretch yes/no to n-way multiple choice, then a good first question is: which entry in this book (gesture at encyclopedia britannica) best describes it?

Re:its borken

[PurpleBob]

You don't get it. It's a part of the game, and the only N-way question they ask is that one.

Plus, 20Q is tuned to answer yes-no questions, and it doesn't get much information from the first one.

Re:its borken

[ArmorFiend]

You don't get it. It's a part of the game, and the only N-way question they ask is that one.

Plus, 20Q is tuned to answer yes-no questions, and it doesn't get much information from the first one.

Uh, in the best case, they get log(N) questions for the price of one, where N is the number of multiple choice options, and the log is base 2, of course. Around HERE, serious players are made to start with
1) is it mineral?
2b) is it animal?

For their expanded, illegal first question, you'd do something like
1) is it animal, vegetable, or mineral
2a) [see above]
2b) is it "other"?

Actually, a better response to a would-be cheater who asks "is it animal, mineral, or vegetable" on his first question is: yes.

Close, but no cigar

[You're All Wrong]

I was thinking of SCO - and it guessed:

I am guessing that it is a urinal?

It wasn't that far out, was it?

YAW.

Really easy to beat

[sahonen]

Pretty much anything I picked that wasn't an animal, vegetable or mineral, I won. One time I was thinking of a drum and it said cuckoo clock. Oh well, out of all the objects in the world I don't think you can get them all in just 20 questions.

Spontaneous knowledge

[PurpleBob]

The best part of the site is "Spontaneous knowledge" - when it gains just enough information to cross some threshold and draw its own conclusions about an object (which is usually not the object you had as your answer). At the end of the game, it tells you all of these conclusions.

For example, I played it with the answer "a search engine". Here's what it concluded:

The mandelbrot set is probably not made of plastic
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't live in the desert
You might not wear the mandelbrot set on your finger
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't wear a mask
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't have a trunk
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't crumble
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't nest on top of chimneys
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't burrow
The mandelbrot set is probably not usually made from bricks
The mandelbrot set is probably not made out of wood
The mandelbrot set is probably not a pizza topping
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't live in tundra
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't have gears
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't have flippers
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't have a spring
The mandelbrot set might not sting
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't have tassels
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't wear black
The mandelbrot set is probably not radioactive
The mandelbrot set is probably not sometimes kept as a house pet
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't vibrate at a predetermined rate
The mandelbrot set is probably not a type of grain
The mandelbrot set is probably not a cartoon character
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't help you clean your teeth
The mandelbrot set is probably not an endangered species
Something probably doesn't live in the mandelbrot set
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't grow in a bunch
The mandelbrot set is probably not a lazy animal
The mandelbrot set probably doesn't hop
The mandelbrot set is probably not long and thin
The mandelbrot set is probably not a type of grass

Final proof

[clausiam]

For all those ./ comments that say the internet is mostly used for prOn.
I played a game where the word I thought of was "pussy" and the guesses? 1) Software, 2) Internet

Scary...

Well lets look at its failures

[linzeal]

Chemeolithotropesp Nope Sex Robot

Nope Time machine

Nope

What use is this thing?

Slashdot at work:

[complete loony]

"Very heavy server load; access may be denied"

Honestly works

[Lord_Dweomer]

The site is amazing. I was thinking about a vibrator...and eventually it gave me this. And while ultimately it did not say that it was a vibrator...it then has at the bottom of this page some uncommon info about a vibrator. Scary? Yes. Endlessly amusing? WIthout a doubt.