The Mind Reader
after C. E. Shannon & D. W. Hagelbarger · Bell Telephone Laboratories, 1953
Think of a bit, 0 or 1, and press it. The machine has already guessed what you will choose. Be unpredictable. First to 25 wins.
| Pattern length | Your last n bits | …then 0 | …then 1 | Votes 0 | Votes 1 |
|---|
The circuit takes your last n bits (n = 0…7), counts every earlier time that exact run appeared, and notes which bit usually followed. Each pattern length casts −0.4(n−3)² + 5 votes, scaled by how lopsided its record is. The side with more votes becomes the guess shown here, committed before you press. Yes, peeking is cheating. The machine forgives you.
or use ← / → arrow keys
◉ In 1953, David Hagelbarger and Claude Shannon each built a relay machine at Bell Labs that predicted whether a human would choose “heads” or “tails.” Against 9,795 human choices, Hagelbarger’s machine was right 5,218 times, because people are worse at being random than they believe. This copy watches the last eight bits of your history for patterns you didn’t know you had.