08-02-2007

Humans Still Beat Computers at Some Tasks

I read that recently computers have “solved” the game of checkers, having now mapped out every possible game. That means that a human player’s best hope would be to tie a game against such a computer.

With that in mind, it’s nice to know that humans are still better than computers when it comes to certain tasks. Yesterday, I watched a Google Tech Talk given by Luis von Ahn, a computer science Ph.D., who specializes in harnessing the computational strengths of humans. The talk was not as dry as it may sound. In fact, it was one of the most interesting Tech Talks I’ve watched.

Von Ahn has developed programs and games to help thwart spammers and collect useful data for search engines and other databases. His reCAPTCHA program helps in recognizing classic texts for the Gutenberg Project in a very novel way. When users enter text into a reCAPTCHA script to prove themselves human, they are actually helping to recognize words that computers were unable to.

Von Ahn’s games pit players against one another in ways that allow useful data to be collected. Von Ahn does a much better job of explaining and demonstrating the games that I can. I recommend checking out his presentation (below or on Google Video). Or read the recent wired Magazine profile of von Ahn. Or play one of Von Ahn’s games online.

Posted by Matt in creativity, tech, video | RSS 2.0

One Response to “Humans Still Beat Computers at Some Tasks”
  1. George Harkin Says:

    I too am hooked on the Google Tech Talks. You might check out the iTunes U pages if you’re interested in refreshing those skills learned in college.

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