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An AI Is Playing Pictionary To Figure Out How the World Works (technologyreview.com)

Researchers at the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) believe that Pictionary could push machine intelligence beyond its current limits. To that end, they have devised an online version of the game that pairs a human player with an AI program. MIT Technology Review reports: In case you've never played it before, Pictionary involves trying to draw an image that conveys a written word or phrase for your teammates to guess. This tests a person's drawing skills but also the ability to convey complex meaning using simple concepts. Given the phrase "wedding ring," for example, a player might try to draw the object itself but also a bride and groom or a wedding ceremony.

That makes it the perfect vehicle to help teach machines. The team developed an online version of the game, called Iconary, that pairs a user with an AI bot called AllenAI. Both take turns as the artist and the guesser. Playing as artist, a user is given a phrase and then has to sketch things to convey it. The sketches are first turned into clip-art icons using computer vision; then the computer program tries to guess the phrase using a database of words and concepts and the relationship between them. If the program gets only part of the phrase, it will ask for another image to clarify. The AI program uses a combination of AI techniques to draw and guess. Over time, by playing against enough people, AllenAI should learn from their common-sense understanding of how concepts (like "books" and "pages") go together in everyday life, Fahadi says. It will also help the researchers explore ways for humans and machines to communicate and collaborate more effectively.

31 comments

  1. In other news... by TigerPlish · · Score: 2

    ...that same AI read Slashdot for a month and promptly shot itself when it saw what goes on in AC-land.

    You know what I"m talking about. There's a whole underbelly of political .. ahem... "discourse".. taking place at 0 and below.

    I wish the lot of them would just... go away. It's not entertaining anymore. It's just children yelling at each other, just like the "grownups" they see on TV, yelling at each other.

    --
    The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
    1. Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's no better when they sign in and post dishonest faggot shit for constantly-debunked-already propaganda purposes, let's be honest. Some have multiple accounts just to jackoff-mod themselves into the main discussion.

      Better or worse? You decide.

    2. Re:In other news... by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      It looks like it is not open source, so who cares. It will fade away; quietly.

    3. Re: In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AI can only draw pictures. It has no idea what they mean. It can identify simple things. It would not know the difference between, say, one sickening hippie farm to table dish and anothe, although Chinese people seemed to fare okay.

  2. Can I break it? by Major_Disorder · · Score: 1

    Just let it look at my drawings, and it's mental outlook will be permanantly broken.
    Could be fun.

    --
    First law of people: People are generally stupid.
  3. show butthoals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i sniff youre dog butthoals,

    1. Re: show butthoals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clever. I want it to draw a hand drawing another hand. What would that say?

    2. Re: show butthoals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The war on terror.

  4. File under "future game show novelty" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not AI as we've been sold by constant every day revisions of the same hype.

    captcha : posers

  5. There's so much innuendo with humans by rmdingler · · Score: 1

    (Assuming I could draw at all legibly) I could draw a ring in a pictionary game, then add a ball and chain to narrow the ring type down.

    Humans can make intuitive leaps that might baffle machine learning algorithms.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:There's so much innuendo with humans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It doesn't matter what you draw, the computer doesn't care is there a chain or a wedding dress. Of course if training data does not contain something, then it can't guess it. E.g. I could draw a tree, car and a triangle and claim that it is a wedding ring and the AI would never guess it. But if you train it with enough many people and some people draw also a chain, then the AI learns that. If none or very few draw it, then it is so insignificant that it doesn't need that information.

      Mind you that my kids would never guess your wedding ring either, even they are human.

  6. Trump is AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Awesome Intelligence!

  7. creimer's got dat phat booty to make you go HNNNNG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hear it also drew a perfect reproduction of creimer's quivering asshole with santorum leaking out after it had been pounded by muuuuh diiiik!!!

    YEEEEEAH!

  8. Look the AI can do games by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    No AI winter just yet?

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. I cheats by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I tried it out at https://iconary.allenai.org/ and the phrase I was given to draw was "man drying dish" - but I misread that as "man drying fish" - so I drew a man, a sun and a fish - it was guessing "man catching a dish", "man releasing a dish", "man throwing a dish", "man carrying a dish" and "man browsing a dish" before it gave up.

    It cheats.

  10. Allen Institute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this the Allen Institute for Statistical Analysis?

    I guess they renamed themselves to keep up with the Jonses ....

  11. WOPR II? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This time it's personal???

    1. Re:WOPR II? by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      let's play missile command

    2. Re:WOPR II? by houghi · · Score: 1

      Well, it was not on the list https://pc-museum.com/046-imsa...

      (But neither was tic tac toe)

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  12. Quick, Draw by JimDot · · Score: 1

    There's another sketching objects for AIs game, I find it much easier and more fun but I guess it's not quite as ambitious. https://quickdraw.withgoogle.c...

  13. The slow bureaucratic process in motion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The wheels slowly grind in Pai's direction. Things have been slow to pickup, but enough have whinged about what he's doing and either:

    a) The process to sort out wtf the FCC is doing has begun, and hopefully will result in the issues being fixed.

    b) You've got lip-service, and nothing intends to change, likely because business, and lobbying $$$, not people, is more important to politicians.

    Watch this space folks!

  14. Elsewhere by coofercat · · Score: 1

    I'm teaching an AI beer pong and spin the bottle. I expect to take over the world pretty soon.

  15. ugh by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

    So they're going to get done with the pictures and then they'll realize how much information about the world is in *movement.*

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  16. "SYNTAX ERROR" by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1
    But if you ask this so-called 'AI' what it thought about what it learned today playing Pictionary, it just replies:

    ?SYNTAX ERROR
    >_

    ..and sits there with the cursor blinking, waiting for a new command.

    As usual, I'm not impressed.

    1. Re:"SYNTAX ERROR" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have some respect, man. Scientists worked really long and hard on this and they deserve to have a cult of suckers i mean customers buying all their toys i mean products that will revolutionise the future. AI is already much smarter than you so it clearly knows better whats good for you.Don't get left behind!

    2. Re:"SYNTAX ERROR" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have it on the best of authority that all this AI crap is the same AI crap they had in the 90's but just on bigger faster hardware with more storage, that's the only difference -- and it's about as trustworthy, which is to say 'not so much'.

  17. And so Skynet begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    {Human draws a dog}
    AI: "dog"
    Human: "Correct"
    {Human draws a cat}
    AI: "cat"
    Human: "Correct"
    {Human draws a stick figure}
    AI: "kill"
    Human: "uh..."

  18. If it is trained to only guess penis or boobs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...it'll be right 90% of the time.

  19. Finite search spaces by alfino · · Score: 1

    Machine learning operates within a model, influenced by implementer's bias. Anything it'll ever be able to do will be constrained to lie within the model. There is no way "an AI" will be able to understand human concepts the same way humans do, and in part that's because humans don't learn just by playing Pictionary.

    When will this hype subside, so that we can actually focus on the real stuff machine learning can do, without constant conflation with the idea that "general AI" could even ever exist?

    --
    echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:" net@madduck
    1. Re:Finite search spaces by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "When will this hype subside"

      Never. I for one welcome our new hype overlords