20q.net a 20 Questions Game

[Chris.C]

http://www.20q.net/

A pretty amazing game that can be eerily accurate. I like to play Classic mode mainly. It has guessed some pretty far out stuff. Whats fun is to call a friend and ask them the questions, freaks them out. Most of the other modes though have awkward questioning and don't guess as well, for me at least. Would be fun to use the Movies mode to guess the next Rifftrax, but only one person would have to be doing it.

[mrbasehart]

Huh.  That is pretty freaky.  It got Humphrey Bogart right off the bat, but struggled with Ingrid Bergman.

[Pak-Man]

There's something similar here: http://www.smalltime.com/dictator.html

Except that you have to pretend to be either a dictator or sitcom character. It guessed correctly a LOT. :^)

[Variety of Cells]

I'm sorry, but why are people amused by this?  It's an incredibly simple program.  The only thing to be impressed by is the extent of the data base that it draws from, which is often extended by users, not just the programmer.  I'm not saying I could write the program, but in comparison to others it is simplistic.  The game makes sense when you play it with another person cause you can taunt them and call them names when you stump them, but when you play it against a computer then that's it, you're done.  You realize that the program's database either does not include your word or you didn't answer one of the questions correctly.  And then you realize what a waste that was.

[Pak-Man]

Not impressed at all by it. I know how it works. I just think it's a neat application of a user-fed database. :^)

[Chris.C]

I'm sorry, but why are people amused by this?

Not everyone is the same, most people are amused by sports, but I find them extremely boring. Depends on a persons perspective.

It's an incredibly simple program.

Not everyone knows how computer programming works and all programs are supposed to be simple do to algorithms, making them is the hard part. This isn't simple for those who know nothing about programming. Rocket Science is simple for some people, it depends on the person and their point of view. I have never dealt with AI before, still a weakling programmer. I can understand how it might somewhat work, but what I think is probably completely wrong then how they did it. Because almost everything I guess I always have a few contradictions at the end. It doesn't toss out everything on just one question. Tell it you are thinking of an animal, but guess something else and it will still get it. I looked it up on Wikipedia(not the best source) and it has to do with neural networking, which I might read about sometime. It also says that are there that the game was actually made dumber so that it didn't always guess the right object so that it can learn as well.

And then you realize what a waste that was.

Which can be applied to just about every single computer game made. In the end almost all of them are a waste if you think about it. Doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing them though.

I still think its fun to show off to people.

[Minnesota]

cool I love those 20 question toys

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

I did the dictator sitcom star one and was thinking of Shepard Book.... I think it broke though. Guess it's not a Firefly fan. I know that it was supposed to be "sitcom" star, but they were asking me questions about Picard and stuff, so I figured Firefly was valid. I'm gonna try George-Michael Bluth next.


Just finished, and it guessed George-Michael, after 35 questions. I'm gonna try Creed from The Office now.