How many rounds of rock, paper, scissors have you played in your life? Probably not enough to outsmart a computer. Have you identified trends in playing behaviour? Doubtful. Are you predictable with your throwing strategy? Likely. Is it even possible to be any good at the game? Well, here’s your chance to find out. Test your rock, paper scissors prowess against a super smart, battle-tested opponent: a computer.
The New York Times has created a Watson-esque computer that has a database of over 200,000 previous rounds of roshambo to draw from and can mimic human reasoning by using statistical averages and simple rules. It’s pretty good at figuring out what you want to do, so if you play with any semblance of strategy, you’ll lose. In order to win, just go balls out with pure randomness. That’s your only chance at survival.
The computer also offers up a ‘novice’ mode where the computer has no previous playing experience and learns about your strategy on the fly. Play rock, papers, scissors over at the NY Times. [NYT]