Rock-paper-scissors is a simple game whose outcome depends largely on luck and a little bit on psyching out your partner.
But when played with the robot from the Ishikawa Watanabe Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan, lady luck and mind tricks simply don’t apply — it has a 100% winning rate.
The robot, which looks like a three-fingered hand perched on a stand, can recognize what play its human opponent will throw and counter it 1 millisecond before the human completes its move. That means before you’ve even gotten your rock or paper or scissor out, the robot has already read what you will do and beaten you. The robot relies on high-speed vision to anticipate and counter its opponent, play after play.
This is the third iteration of the rock-paper-scissors robot champion. In the first version, the robot played its move 20 milliseconds after the human completed its throw. In the second version, the robot won 100 percent of the time but completed its move at the same time as the human. The latest version gives the robot a 1 millisecond advantage to take the game.
But for now, watch a robot that’s really good at your childhood game.
