# What was that one game Dopers found that had the computer guessing who they were? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 25, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627 "2011-04-25T06:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Meeko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e495f1/32.png) [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/141 "2011-04-30T02:15:36Z")
I just tried for Alice, Mr.Snuffalupgus’ sister. He got to Snuffy, and I said no. Got the option to add Alice. Looks like Muppets are not his strong point. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/142 "2011-04-30T03:40:43Z")
I’m flummoxed that they were able to pull out Josh Homme from the questions that were asked. Impressive! …And it got PJ Harvey too. Heh, this is kinda fun. …although … it chose David Lee Roth for Sammy Hagar. Probably not a bad thing though. Hilarity. ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/143 "2011-04-30T10:55:16Z")
Took 29 questions to get Paul Stanley of KISS after wrongly guessing Alice Cooper. Took 30 questions to get Cliff Williams of AC/DC after wrongly guessing Steve Harris of Iron Maiden. Thought I really had him stumped when I identified Williams as English rather than Australian. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/144 "2011-04-30T12:07:06Z")
Wow. Vril Dox. 20 questions. Most of which are thoroughly generic. (All answers exactly what it was expecting for him.) > [@](#): > > Has your character really existed? No > Is your character a human being? No > Does your character stand on two legs? Yes > Does your character have an animal shape? No > Does your character have hair? Yes > Is your character from a TV series? No > Has your character ever been in a movie? No > Is your character from a video game? No > Does your character fight? Yes > Is your character found in a novel? No > Is your character a female? No > Does your character come from the Internet? No > Is your character black-haired? No > Is your character a god or a goddess? No > Is your character from an anime (Japanese animation)? No > Is your character from a comic book? Yes > Is your character bad? Probably [This was really a ‘partially’, not a ‘probably’.] > Has your character been into space? Yes > Is your character from Marvel Comics? No > Does your character use a lantern? No On the other hand, I did Airazor from Beast Wars…twice. First time it failed to get her at all - or even to have her on the list of possibilities…but it did ask 4 times if she was female, twice if she was male, and thrice if she were green. It’s guesses were Swoop (Transformers G1), Gilda (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), and Terrorsaur (Hey, actually a Beast Wars character! … But a dude. Way to emasculate him, Akinator!)…Second time it got her in 23 questions after guessing Optimus Primal from Beast Wars…had to establish she was a bird to get her. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/145 "2011-04-30T12:32:45Z")
> [@steronz](#): > > I was confused too. You click the checkbox next to the name, and then click the name itself. A bit of crummy UI. You only click the checkboxes if there is more than one name. And then you click on the one that is styled correctly. It’s part of the self correcting mechanism, in case the same person is in there twice. But, yeah, it is weird. > [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **Tengu** :True, but there’s enough correlation between those that an ideal algorithm would probably never ask more than one of them. I would not consider an algorithm that required explicit human input to be ideal. One that correlates questions by asking them is superior. > [@Chronos](#): > > And it could have gotten more information from “Are you the main character of your show”, which would have separated Leonard and Shelden from Raj and Howard. I don’t know. Many people would consider them main characters, as they are in nearly every show (and we don’t have a cast list opening to tell us otherwise). I’m going to go play them and see: Akinator says they are not main characters, but Wikipedia [says otherwise](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Wolowitz), identifying Howard as the only _main_ male character without a doctoral degree. BTW, I temporarily broke him after doing Raj. When I went to do Howard, the first question was blank, and had to reload and log back in (as it doesn’t use cookies). ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/146 "2011-04-30T13:41:22Z")
Stumped him with Ingold Inglorion from Barbara Hambly’s Darwath books, but then again there are a lot of wizards in fantasy lit. Tried all sorts of other stuff that he got right away. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/147 "2011-04-30T17:48:03Z")
Yes! 😃 I finally completely stumped him with someone who isn’t even in his database-Kickaha, from Philip Jose Farmer’s World of Tiers series. Take that you super genius you! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/148 "2011-04-30T18:52:46Z")
> [@](#): > > I would not consider an algorithm that required explicit human input to be ideal. One that correlates questions by asking them is superior. I agree. I didn’t mean that a human should explicitly program in that those were related questions; by “ideal algorithm” I meant the limit of it having learned all. As in, if it’s programmed well, then over the course of many games, it should itself learn that those questions are correlated, and ask them together less and less often. Of course, this is made more difficult by new questions being continually added. Now, if it were _really_ cleverly programmed, then it’d have some degree of language parsing built in, and would be able to suspect that those questions were correlated before it even saw any answers (if nothing else, from seeing the similarity of the words “America” and “American”). But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2011, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/149 "2011-04-30T22:59:46Z")
Didn’t know Milquetoast the Cockroach from Bloom County (tho, to be fair, he did guess whether he was purple, but I thought he was black, but since he wasn’t in the database it didn’t matter). ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/150 "2011-05-01T23:35:49Z")
Wow, I’m impressed with this one. My character - IS an adult man - IS a citizen of the United-States - HAS been married - is NOT black - is NOT an actor - is NOT still working - is NOT a politician - is NOT dead - has NOT really existed - is NOT from a tv series - does NOT use guns - his name does NOT appear in the title of a movie - does NOT have a daughter - does NOT wear glasses - IS the main character in his movie - does NOT have a son - HAS been accused of crimes - does NOT have big strong biceps - has NOT been in jail - does NOT play mostly in comedies Can you name the character this fits? The program did, it’s… Guy Montag from Fahrenheit 451 How did it know that? There’s so little information. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/151 "2011-05-01T23:41:15Z")
It did not get the [Hensel twins.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abigail_and_Brittany_Hensel) ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/152 "2011-05-07T01:15:19Z")
Had to bump for this…it sucessfully guessed: “Bin Laden’s killer (USA!!)” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Girl\_From\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Girl\_From\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_From_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/153 "2011-05-11T10:47:09Z")
Watching Celebrity Apprentice and stumped it with Nene Leakes. (Although you could reasonably argue, “who??”) ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/154 "2011-05-11T15:28:38Z")
I stumped it with Chris Kluwe (Vikings punter) and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, but it got George Mallory, Tim Pawlenty, Wakko Warner, and a bunch of others, no problem. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2011, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/155 "2011-05-11T17:50:53Z")
I was apparently only the 27th person to play Tyler Marlocke (from PS 238), but it still got him eventually. What’s really impressive, though, is that it got Eccentrica Gallumbits (the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon 6) in 20 questions, without ever asking something like “is your character associated with sex”. I guess “Not in England but the character has British origins, has been into space, female, not human but stands on two legs” is enough. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/156 "2011-05-12T02:47:59Z")
Hehe, cool. Successful guesses on: Ranma Saotome (17 tries) Syd Barrett (15 tries) Laika (17 tries) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/157 "2011-05-12T02:54:54Z")
…and stumped by **Luther Arkwright** (British 80’s comic book) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Trepa\_Mayfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@Trepa\_Mayfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trepa_Mayfield)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/158 "2011-05-12T06:17:41Z")
One of the questions I got was “Does your character know what butter is?” What. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/159 "2011-05-12T21:53:21Z")
Yeah, I wonder just how many times it needs to try out a new question before it concludes “hey, this question sucks, it never narrows down anything” and stops using it. **GargoyleWB** , I played Laika on it, too, and I don’t remember the number of questions, but it wasn’t too hard. It really seems to like “Has your character ever been in space”, and combined with the standard questions like “is your character real” and “is your character human”, that narrows it down quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2011, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627/160 "2011-05-12T23:05:51Z")
Is your character real - no Does your character stand on 2 legs - no Is your character from a TV series - no Does your character wear human clothes - no and so on for 15 questions, then : Has your character been in space - yes Does your character have a face - yes I’m thinking of … The man in the moon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-that-one-game-dopers-found-that-had-the-computer-guessing-who-they-were/579627.md?page=9)