Rock, paper, scissors robot can’t be beaten

It’s only got three fingers to your five, but it’ll still beat you every time.

(Credit:
Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)

In case you were in any doubt about the superiority of robots to humans, Japanese researchers have unleashed a machine that’s unbeatable at that timeless human test of wills, rock, paper, scissors.

The boffins at the Ishikawa Oku Lab in the University of Tokyo call it a “human-machine cooperation system,” but this robot hand doesn’t seem interested in cooperating at all.

It’s only interested in winning, and it does that by cheating, in a sense.

A high-speed camera captures its human opponent’s choice of the three weapons, and it takes only a millisecond for the robot to form the winning hand shape.

Related stories

• Beating a robot at rock-paper-scissors
• Rock beats scissors, glove beats humans?

As seen in the vid below, the hand looks like it’s almost playing honestly and showing its weapon at the same time as the hapless human.

By the time he or she has realized what’s going on, the robot has already won. It wins 100 percent of the time, according to the researchers.

Oddly enough, rock, paper, scissors is … [Read more]

Related Links:
Last Moment Robot: ‘End of life detected’
You won’t be the life of the party with this shoulder robot
Geeking out on hardware is not just about robots anymore
Geeking out on hardware is not just about robots anymore
Swimming robot sends Crave off the deep end