What’s on your mind? 20Q reveals thoughts
Admit it. You’ve always secretly wanted someone to read your mind. Or a kindred spirit to notice that look in your eye and ask all the right questions until they discover what’s weighing on you. If only your spouse/friend/general practitioner could hone that skill!
And good luck with that. Worthy pursuit. In the meantime, there’s 20Q, a handheld game that’s rising from its modest roots to cause quite a stir. Retailing for $9.99 at Target, Wal-Mart and various toy stores, the device uses artificial intelligence to guess what you’re thinking by way of 20 yes-or-no questions.
After hearing several friends rave about this thing recently, I hunted one down. And sure enough, it reads your darn mind.
20Q is the brainchild of Robin Burgener, a computer programmer from Ontario, Canada, who developed the game in 1988 and put it on a floppy disk to pass around to his friends. In 1996 the game became a Web site ( www.20q.net), which asked visitors to submit one object and one question about that object. Burgener used an algorithm and the accumulated questions to determine what questions to ask and, in turn, what you’re thinking about.
Patti Saitow, vice president for global marketing services for Radica Games Limited, approached Burgener in 2003 about turning the site into a handheld game, and in 2004, the little device was born.
“Its accuracy has become uncanny,” Saitow says. “It could even guess things that were obscene, but we suppressed that. It knows you’re thinking that, it just won’t say it. Instead it asks you ‘Does your mother know you’re thinking like that?’ “
Radica wasn’t prepared for the game to prove as popular as it did this past holiday season, Saitow says. The company increased its production tenfold, but stores still were selling out of the games left and right.
The game begins by asking you if you’re thinking of an animal, mineral, vegetable or “other,” and goes on to ask such questions as, “Does it have a hard outer shell?,” “Is it heavier than a pound of butter?” and “Does it break if dropped?” After 20 questions, it guesses what you’re thinking. If it’s wrong, it asks five more questions and then ventures another guess.
At our shindig, it correctly guessed golf club, camera, coffeemaker, football, newspaper, giraffe and apple in 20 questions. We stumped it with necklace, for which it guessed bracelet and then, after five more questions, ring. We tried five different times to get it to guess baby (we have a lot of pregnant friends) and it guessed womb (close!), elf (festive!), pussy willow (huh?), coffeemaker (keeps you awake?) and cadaver (ick!). But seven out of nine ain’t bad.
Of course one of the potential benefits of having someone constantly ask, “what are you thinking?,” is having someone occasionally ask, “what are you thinking?” One of our friends was thinking syringe, and after asking such questions as “Can it cheer you up?” and “Would you use it daily?” the game guessed harmonica. And really, don’t musical instruments make for more pleasant party chitchat than drug paraphernalia? It’s like a little Miss Manners in your pocket.
Which got me thinking. Imagine the face this thing could help save if employed at the right moments!
A certain hotel heiress finds herself in a hotel room with a creep. “Is he engaged to Shannen Doherty?” it asks her. “Is he wielding a video camera?” Viola! No Paris Hilton tape.
You see? We could all use a mind reader now and then.