I suggested "Is it a trap?" as a question for Admiral Ackbar. I feel accomplished.
I don't see how you could use that for admiral Ackbar. Unless the question is "Does your character say "It's a trap"?". After all, Ackbar is not a trap himself. It would work for the Death Star under the objects category.
So, I tried some relatively obscure characters recently. It sometimes gets it wrong on its first guess, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Akinator got Scootaloo successfully, as well as Tiffany Aching from the Discworld and the Creeper from Minecraft (not obscure, admittedly). It was fully stumped by Katsuhiko Jinnai (couldn't even get him with 40 questions), but successfully got him when I tried him again.
Got Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, on the second try. Seriously, fuck whoever made this thing, it's going to be Skynet.
EDIT: Also got Charles V on its first try. I'm surprised that it knows so many historical figures, especially well-known ones. Next: Richelieu and Gustav II Adolf. EDIT2: Both on the first try, with not very many questions. Godammit.
It took 40 questions for Cnaiur urs Skiotha, but I wasn't fully sure of some answers. I remember it couldn't get him a year ago, so I'm pleased with its progress.
I tried a bunch of Phoenix Wright characters, and it even got Acro, though it took 30 questions. It took longer than I expected to get Damon Gant, but that's probably because it only asked about video games at around the 17th question for some reason. Normally I think it would take 20.
It got Dr Zomboss from Plants vs Zombies in 30 questions. Budgie the little Helicopter took more than 20, but less than 30. Aslan in 20.
Oh snap, IBM Watson in 20. Apparently they are already working together to make Skynet. Deep Blue took 40, but it's old anyway. Aha! It was stumped by Wolfram Alpha.
Yeah, if we assume that Akinator's questions are generally useful and not over-specific, 2^40 is then a decent estimate of its knowledge capability. That's enough for every person who has ever lived, and another 9 or so fictional or non-human characters per person.
However, there are some caveats. For one thing, there are in fact 5 possible answers to each question rather than two. Despite this, it is only for a rather limited number of characters that, say, a "don't know" answer is meaningful, so the potential for extra information is limited. On the other hand, some of Akinator's questions give very little additional information. If we factor in limitations on questions, e.g. disallowing "Is your character one of (c1, c2, ... c1000)", then you won't get too close to 2^40. EDIT: It's probably possible to split in half every time if you ask questions like "Does your character's name lie between Ac and Ko in alphabetical order?", but that's pretty cheap.
I'd say that Akinator could reasonably handle something like ten billion characters, while its current database (or rather the current guessable portion of it) would contain some millions.
It got Diesel (Not Diesel 10, who just sucks) from Thomas the Tank Engine, though it didn't a year ago. I am pride.
For me it didn't get Rym or Scott,
Not only did it get Rym for me, it got him within 20 questions. It couldn't get Scott, but I tried several times and now it can get him within 40.
Here's a competition - who can get Akinator to guess something the earliest? 12 is the earliest I've seen, but it's pretty easy to get so it doesn't count for much.
For a moment I thought it was going to get God in about six questions, but then it did some random questions that dragged it out to thirteen or so.
I mean, I'd answered yes to "is your character famous for having created the world?" and "is your character in the Bible?" there's really nowhere else to go with that.
For a moment I thought it was going to get God in about six questions, but then it did some random questions that dragged it out to thirteen or so.
I think sometimes when the Akinator is really sure, it asks extra questions just to learn even more about the character. Like if it doesn't know if a character's hair is red, it will ask it. Then if you say he guessed correctly, it remembers that the character has red hair for next time.
For a moment I thought it was going to get God in about six questions, but then it did some random questions that dragged it out to thirteen or so.
I think sometimes when the Akinator is really sure, it asks extra questions just to learn even more about the character. Like if it doesn't know if a character's hair is red, it will ask it. Then if you say he guessed correctly, it remembers that the character has red hair for next time.
Yeah, I agree with this thought. When you look at the details for the character afterwards, Akinator lists the expected answer for that character as "?", which suggests that it is just taking the opportunity to get more information.
The cool thing is that the algorithm behind Akinator is clearly relatively simple, probably just a neural network of the kind described here (in the first answer). What makes Akinator truly powerful is massive amounts of reinforcement learning, as well as the mechanism for user addition of questions and answers.
I'd also like to note that Akinator is actually potentially useful (apart from plain entertainment value) for situations where you remember a character but cannot remember the name or where it is from.
Comments
"Did your character attempt to bomb the wrong place?"
Akinator got Scootaloo successfully, as well as Tiffany Aching from the Discworld and the Creeper from Minecraft (not obscure, admittedly).
It was fully stumped by Katsuhiko Jinnai (couldn't even get him with 40 questions), but successfully got him when I tried him again.
EDIT: Also got Charles V on its first try. I'm surprised that it knows so many historical figures, especially well-known ones. Next: Richelieu and Gustav II Adolf.
EDIT2: Both on the first try, with not very many questions. Godammit.
It took longer than I expected to get Damon Gant, but that's probably because it only asked about video games at around the 17th question for some reason. Normally I think it would take 20.
Budgie the little Helicopter took more than 20, but less than 30.
Aslan in 20.
Oh snap, IBM Watson in 20. Apparently they are already working together to make Skynet. Deep Blue took 40, but it's old anyway.
Aha! It was stumped by Wolfram Alpha.
That's enough for every person who has ever lived, and another 9 or so fictional or non-human characters per person.
However, there are some caveats. For one thing, there are in fact 5 possible answers to each question rather than two. Despite this, it is only for a rather limited number of characters that, say, a "don't know" answer is meaningful, so the potential for extra information is limited.
On the other hand, some of Akinator's questions give very little additional information. If we factor in limitations on questions, e.g. disallowing "Is your character one of (c1, c2, ... c1000)", then you won't get too close to 2^40.
EDIT: It's probably possible to split in half every time if you ask questions like "Does your character's name lie between Ac and Ko in alphabetical order?", but that's pretty cheap.
I'd say that Akinator could reasonably handle something like ten billion characters, while its current database (or rather the current guessable portion of it) would contain some millions.
Here's a competition - who can get Akinator to guess something the earliest?
12 is the earliest I've seen, but it's pretty easy to get so it doesn't count for much.
I mean, I'd answered yes to "is your character famous for having created the world?" and "is your character in the Bible?" there's really nowhere else to go with that.
The cool thing is that the algorithm behind Akinator is clearly relatively simple, probably just a neural network of the kind described here (in the first answer). What makes Akinator truly powerful is massive amounts of reinforcement learning, as well as the mechanism for user addition of questions and answers.
I'd also like to note that Akinator is actually potentially useful (apart from plain entertainment value) for situations where you remember a character but cannot remember the name or where it is from.