November 4, 2013

Rock-paper-scissors robot always wins... by cheating.

"Technically, the robot cheats because it reacts extremely quickly to what the human hand is doing rather than making a premeditated simultaneous action as the rules state. Taking just one millisecond (ms) - a thousandth of a second - to recognise what shape the human hand is making, it then chooses a winning move and reacts at high speed."

Technically!

Is there some non-technical way in which the robot is not cheating? The robot is cheating! In the future, there will be more and more robots, and they will all be cheating. You won't be able to see it, because it will happen so fast. Sleight of robot hand. You will think these are our brilliant benefactors. You will love them. Get ready! Rock-paper-scissors is just the beginning.

17 comments:

Strelnikov said...

Technically,the robot in the WH misspoke when he said "if you like your plan, you can keep it".

Gee, that does make it sound better!

BarrySanders20 said...

Humans tend to react in focreful ways when they realize the've been cheated.

I suspect the cheating RPS robot would end up with a metal spike up its CPU.

That would stop its cheatin' ways.

David said...

I'm not sure that the robot is cheating at all. What rule is there that the shape has to be premeditated? The "official" rules from the World RPS Society say only that the players must act "simultaneously." Maybe the robot is not acting simultaneously with the human, but only if we have special rules for robots. I bet Ted Williams, who could see, recognize and react to a pitch coming off a pitcher's hand, could also beat me at RPS.

More to the point, am I cheating if I know that my son always starts out by throwing a rock?

rhhardin said...

That's been a problem with guys tossing coins. They catch it so that it goes their way.

rhhardin said...

Avalanche is the best policy. All rocks.

Sorun said...

We can defeat our future robot overlords by taping over their camera lens.

madAsHell said...

"Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?."

RecChief said...

you see this kind of post modern "technically speaking" when obamacare supporters claim that the insurance companies are cancelling policies.

Matt Sablan said...

It reminds me of the Jeopardy robot. I always wondered how "fair" that competition really was.

Rusty said...

The robot had to be programmed to do that.
It cannot act of its own volition. Hence the name ,"robot"
It isn't cheating by the robot.

Carnifex said...

The Asimov world of robots rock!

"Caves of Steel" needs to be a movie.

"I, Robot" with Will Smith was okay at best.

And Robbie from "Forbidden Planet" could brew up some fine hootch!

Bill said...

Matthew Sablan said... "It reminds me of the Jeopardy robot. I always wondered how "fair" that competition really was."

Mostly fair. But Watson's faster reaction time did give it an advantage there too, as it could buzz in a millisecond after the end of the question without the humans' concern about acting too soon.

MadisonMan said...

What happens if you go the paper route 'til the last minute and switch to rock? What's the robot do then?

Strelnikov said...

"What happens if you go the paper route 'til the last minute and switch to rock? What's the robot do then?"

Explodes killing everyone in the room.

Just like ObamaCare.

Peter said...

It's not the robot's fault that human reaction time is 1,000 times slower than a robot's.

George Grady said...

Now, build two robots, and have them compete against each other. Mayhem!

southcentralpa said...

In human athletic competition (I don't necessarily include or exclude RPS, because that would mean I have to care about it), the computer would be judged as a "false start" since it reacted too fast...