The Robots Have Already Won (at Roshambo)

The list of games at which humans can still defeat robots is growing distressingly short. We’ve lost chess, checkers, and Jeopardy. Computer programs can challenge top human backgammon players. Now add to that list rock-paper-scissors. Of course, there are those who would say it’s not even a game, since it’s supposed to be pretty much random—a way to force a difficult decision when there are no coins around to flip or straws to draw.

Yet, in video posted online by engineers at the University of Tokyo, viewers can watch a robot hand they developed repeatedly trounce its human antagonist in Janken (the Japanese name of the game). When the human goes rock, the robot goes paper, when the human goes paper, the robot goes scissors, when the human goes scissors, the robot goes rock. Over and over and over.