Human Computation

Luis Van Ahn is a lofty vision and a short attention span (sound familiar?)

The 29 year old computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University prefers short stories to novels, TV shows to short stories, and the Internet to all of the above.

If others share his liabilities, so much the better: he plans to harness his generation's fabled impatience to change the world, according to Smithsonian Magazine's 37 under 36 issue.

MISSION: Make computers smarter
METHOD: Make tasks fun.
MADNESS: GWAP

"Computer solitaire eats up billions of man hours a year," Von Ahn points out "and it does nobody any good." But he says his "games with a purpose," such as the ESP game (just blew an hour on that one), accomplishes all sorts of useful tasks.

Players tag images on the web, translate documents from one language to another, or make it easier for blind people to navigate the web - all while having fun.

When you play the ESP game, a Carnegie Mellon computer pairs you up with another player and sends randomly selected images, such as a picture of the White House, to both screens. Each player tries to describe the picture, and at the same time, tries to guess what words the other player will choose to describe it. As soon as both players use the same word - "president," for example - the computer rewards them with points and downloads another image.


Von Ahn was hooked on computers when he received his Commodore 64 at age 8, and now Google has licensed his ESP game, giving him more time to partner with Internet Archive to create a game to have computer users translate old books, and help the Department of Homeland Security with a game designed to help airport screeners focus on their job by drawing attention to important details on X-ray scans. Ultimately, Von Ahn is on a mission to have computers do it all, "then we can all just sit around in robes eating grapes,"

Works for me.
HB