Robots Can Now Beat Us at Rock-Paper-Scissors, World Domination Coming Soon

Computers can already beat us at chess and Jeopardy, so this one seems a little behind the curve. If robots couldn’t beat us in a mindless game of rock, paper, scissors by now, I don’t think we’d have to worry much about that whole singularity thing.

So the thing here is that the robot sense the shape your hand is forming before it forms, calculates the hand shape that will beat it, and adjusts its robo-fingers accordingly. It’s basically a souped-up motion sensor with an ability tailor-made to impress Reddit. The going tagline is “Rock-paper-scissors Robot with 100% winning rate,” which is so perfectly worded for blowing up the Internet that it’s no surprise the video already has nearly a million views.

But we’re not totally doomed yet: The robot, however, has yet to figure out a way to beat Crenaton-14.

Via IEEE Spectrum

Connections:

• A Computer Named Watson Just Won Jeapordy
• When Kasparov Lost to Deep Blue