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Magic Tricks Created Using Artificial Intelligence For the First Time

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pick-a-circuit-any-circuit dept.

An anonymous reader writes Researchers working on artificial intelligence at Queen Mary University of London have taught a computer to create magic tricks. The researchers gave a computer program the outline of how a magic jigsaw puzzle and a mind reading card trick work, as well the results of experiments into how humans understand magic tricks, and the system created completely new variants on those tricks which can be delivered by a magician.

7 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Re:AI? They taught it. by mugetsu37 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who taught you that? :p

  2. Re:AI? They taught it. by cogeek · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you not intelligent then or did your parents, teachers, society not teach you anything, you just popped out knowing it all? Intelligence doesn't mean knowing everything, it's the ability to learn and to expand on concepts.

  3. Great plot by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AI is made to invent magic tricks.
    AI starts creating more and more complex magic tricks.
    Magician stops understanding the tricks but keeps following the given steps and is as surprised as the audience about the result.
    After a while, the AI starts giving really strange steps and it becomes clear that there is no explanation in current science that justifies the results of the tricks.
    Humanity has meddled with incomprehensible forces, awakening He who was never dead.

    1. Re:Great plot by David_Hart · · Score: 3, Informative

      AI is made to invent magic tricks.
      AI starts creating more and more complex magic tricks.
      Magician stops understanding the tricks but keeps following the given steps and is as surprised as the audience about the result.
      After a while, the AI starts giving really strange steps and it becomes clear that there is no explanation in current science that justifies the results of the tricks.
      Humanity has meddled with incomprehensible forces, awakening He who was never dead.

      When the "AI" can invent magic tricks outside of the basic programming, then I'll be scared.

      Basically, they programmed in one trick and then programmed it to compute more variations of the trick. Not much different than programming a computer to fill out a matrix based on the calculations for a single square.

      We'll know that we have a true AI when it can go from calculating new card tricks to counting cards in Vegas.....

  4. Re:Next trick by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    After the AI winter, the field has really gone downhill.

    Since professors still need to publish, they created a distinction between 'strong AI' and 'weak AI.' For some people, this was fine and yielded useful algorithms (but not AI), but largely it's a way to get published without doing anything substantial. Like this study, for example.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  5. Whose idea IS this? by argStyopa · · Score: 4, Funny

    The first thing you want to teach an AI is "how to trick humans"?

    Is that really smart?

    --
    -Styopa
  6. Re:AI? They taught it. by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 3, Funny

    [The] ability to read and write English comes from zero active training.

    Looking at the way kids write these days, I'd have to agree.

    tl;dr