The Cortex Beats the CPU
July 10, 2007 | By Raymond T. Hightower
The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play. A Carnegie-Mellon computer science professor leverages this Star Trek proverb to harness the greatest supercomputer on planet Earth: the human brain. Computers might add & subtract faster than us, but this month’s issue of Wired tells us where we can still win against our computers!
We’re Smarter Than Computers
Sign up for an account on GoDaddy or Yahoo. Somewhere along the line, you’ll be asked to prove that you’re human. The site will give you a test that’s difficult for computers but easy for humans. “Type the warped letters you see here on this speckled background”, reads the prompt. You type the letters and you’re on your way.
The technique, dubbed captcha by the inventor, Carnegie-Mellon professor Luis von Ahn, is ingenious in its simplicity. Humans can read distorted text against a fuzzy background, but computers (as of this writing) cannot. Captchas give web developers a great way to prevent automated spam.
Beyond Spam
Von Ahn and his team of researchers are thinking far beyond simple spam prevention. Humans beat computers at all sorts of tests, especially tests involving visual recognition. A human can look at a photo of a dog, even a breed he/she has never seen before, and identify it as a dog. Humans handle this task much better than computers.
Harnessing Idle Human Minds
So… given that we know what we’re good at, how do we put that knowledge to good use? The Carnegie-Mellon team harnesses thousands of human minds at once by packaging each problem in the form of a game. One sample problem: image identification. In the game Matchin’, two humans work in tandem to describe images they see on a computer monitor. If the two people use similar words to describe the image, the computer assumes the description is “right” and the game rewards points to the humans.
Some online gamers find Matchin addictive! And as they play, they help to solve the image search problem for everyone else on the web. Von Ahn presented the Matchin’ idea to Google. The company now licenses the technology as an enhancement to their image search offerings. It works!
Next
Now that we have a way to reward people for lending their brain cycles, what apps are next? The Carnegie-Mellon team is wrestling with that question right now. Maybe you have the answer!
But when you can’t see the warped letters clearly that is the humbling aspect of humanity.