Akinator the web genie game
“He had an idea to create a guessing game similar to one you’d play with your children on a long road trip, and he developed an algorithm centered on guessing popular characters.” “The game was built in 2007 by Amaud, who was a telecom engineer at the time,” said Jérôme Soreau, CMO for Elokence. The most Amaud and will say is that it uses Limule and that “the algorithm… is an original creation. Wired’s Rhett Allain has a theory, as do a few folks on Quora. How Limule, and Akinator, work isn’t known. Arnaud renamed Devinettor to Akinator and formed the French company SARL to house Limule - the technology behind Akinator. Akinator began as a 2006 game called Devinettor written by Arnaud Megret. While a fun tale, the true story of Akinator the Web Genie is shrouded in even more mystery than is implied by the genesis of the fictional lamp. He even showed me a picture of Hugh Jackman in his X-Men costume.Īkinator was just as eerily insightful when the names I was thinking of were real, as in legendary baseball player Babe Ruth, the late musician Jimi Hendrix, and fictional characters, including Marty McFly from the “Back to the Future ” film series, and even Queen Elsa from “Frozen.” This fun little 20-questions-style bot never guessed incorrectly for me no matter how odd the questions leading up to his answer seemed.Īccording to legend, Akinator’s lamp was found in a remote desert, and he emerged to challenge humanity to stump him.
Answering yes and no, respectively - and “Don’t Know” to the Taylor Swift dating query - Akinator floored me by correctly divining the character I had in mind as Wolverine. Following that, I was asked if my character was a member of the X-Men, and then whether he was a Founding Father. For instance, during one game, Akinator asked whether my character had ever dated Taylor Swift. There’s even an entire magazine devoted to the subject.Īkinator’s guessing game starts with broad questions that get increasingly more specific as the bot reaches its conclusion. How can I help you?” I disconnected and used the telephone to finally resolve the issue.Ĭhatbots are everywhere, from customer service departments and utility companies to social media and lead generation. Even a statement as simple as “my bill is wrong” seemed to confuse him. It went on like this for 20 minutes with Greg, who was obviously a bot, misunderstanding my progressively more direct requests. Greg: “Which charges? Which do you think are incorrect?”
#Akinator the web genie game movie
Me: “I was triple-charged for the same on-demand movie within a single 24-hour period, remember? Can you please reverse the second and third charges?” Let me look into that for you.”Īfter a few minutes, Greg greeted me again and asked how he could help me. It can be watched as many times as desired during the 24-hour rental window, correct?” We rented an on-demand movie last night but were charged for it multiple times.
After opening a chat session, I was greeted by Greg, who asked for a description of my problem. It was a simple billing mistake, I was sure, so I visited the cable company’s website figuring it would be quickly resolved. Unfortunately, we were charged for each viewing. What can I say? He obviously wants to build a snowman. My son had ordered Disney’s “Frozen” via pay-per-view - with permission (he’s a good kid) - and proceeded to watch the film three times within the allotted 24-hour rental period. I recently tried getting help from my cable television provider via online chat to fix an error on my bill. It’s AI tech that, hopefully, represents the future of automated customer support portals, granting the wishes of millions of frustrated consumers worldwide.
And, on those rare occasions when Akinator can’t identify your choice, you are teaching it. In just a few minutes, the Web Genie will - almost without fail - correctly identify your character. Think of a well-known figure, a real person, or fictional character, and answer Akinator’s simple questions honestly. However, Akinator the Web Genie is a bot that can guess exactly what’s on your mind. Unfortunately, in those capacities, the bots often appear not to know anything, or at least anything we need them to know. TL DR: Chatbots and rudimentary artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming more commonplace in coordinating scheduling, paying bills, and resolving customer service issues.