AI helps mechanical magicians fool human spectators <\/p>\n
Credit: Courtesy of Howard Williams <\/p>\n
The perfect sleight is a flawlessly coordinated act of deception. Magicians dedicate hours to bullying their fingers into precise positions and years mastering the art of misdirection. The best illusionists spend a lifetime honing their prestidigitations. <\/p>\n
Now, theres a computer can do it, tooall in a matter of seconds. <\/p>\n
Yesterday programmers at Queen Mary University of London unveiled a system that uses artificial intelligence to perform magic tricks. The program not only calculates probabilitiesit can capture every potential outcome of most card tricksthe system also evaluates how human spectators will perceive its performances, based on behavioral and cognitive studies. When spectators view a magic trick, they are not experiencing a mathematical model, says Howard Williams, a computer scientist at Queen Mary and co-creator of the system. So we break down the trick into its mathematical and psychological components. <\/p>\n
The 12 magicians of Osiris <\/p>\n
The first trick looks relatively simple. A wooden jigsaw puzzle depicts 12 magicians hands, each casting a spell. But rearrange the puzzle and two of the spells vanish. Hit replay a few times and it just gets frustratingWhere did those extra spells go? <\/p>\n
The effect is based on a classic American puzzle, which sold over 10 million copies back in 1898. Called Get Off the Earth, it employs the same (frustrating) illusion. Keep an eye on this puzzle and youll notice that one of the 13 characters keeps disappearing as Earth moves. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Both tricks involve imperceptibly changing the lengths of some of the puzzle pieces but Williams wondered if science could improve on the illusion. In magic jigsaw puzzles the way people see shapes and changes in length is the fundamental building block, Williams says. How much can you change the length of a shape before someone notices? <\/p>\n
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Artificial Intelligence That Performs Real Magic Tricks [Video]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AI helps mechanical magicians fool human spectators Credit: Courtesy of Howard Williams The perfect sleight is a flawlessly coordinated act of deception. Continue reading