Threatening Product Review: 20 Questions Game

My son got one of these games for his Birthday. It is a pretty amazing toy that asks questions and you answer with yes, no or maybe. According to the website for this game, it guesses the right answer within 20 questions 80% of the time. If you allow it to ask 25 questions it is right 98% of the time.

While at first it seems like a low threat device, if you dig into it's background, the threat levels rise. Robin Bergener invented this game in 1988 as an experiment in artificial intelligence. He created a neural network artificial intelligence that would learn is at played. The first game it played was to guess cat. Over time Robin let others play the game and as the Internet became more prevalent he put the game online for all to play for free. Every time it played it learned and got smarter. They then took this intelligence and what it had learned and put it into a seemingly innocuous children's game.

Threat Level

The threat level of the game itself is two out of five on our sentientemeter. The obvious threats revolve around letting children play Innocent games with computers, which will lead them to trust them. This is a recipe for disaster as sentient machines take over. We must always remember that it is us against them.

It should be noted that the threat level of the artificial intelligence and the online game is a 4 out of 5. It is never good when you hear the words neural network or artificial intelligence in relation to online experiment. Every time the game is played, the machines learn more about us. Don't play it. Stay away. Teach your children the threat that machines are in their lives and future.

Fight for the Flesh

Deckard