Using AI to Play Ancient Board Games
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 963 Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn why learning too much can make you less passionate and how AI is resurrecting ancient board games. Plus: trivia!
Learning too much about your passion may make you less passionate about it by Kelsey Donk
- Lange, A. (2021, March 28). Your passionate hobby might make you less passionate, study finds. The Academic Times. https://academictimes.com/your-passionate-hobby-might-make-you-less-passionate-study-finds/
- Rocklage, M. D., Rucker, D. D., & Nordgren, L. F. (2021). Emotionally Numb: Expertise Dulls Consumer Experience. Journal of Consumer Research. https://academic.oup.com/jcr/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jcr/ucab015/6171148
Episodes referenced in Curiosity Challenge Trivia game:
- What do these things have in common: https://www.curiositydaily.com/we-can-use-dna-for-data-storage
- Memorable postal codes: https://www.curiositydaily.com/post-traumatic-growth-is-a-pandemic-silver-lining/
- Slug that cuts off its own head: https://www.curiositydaily.com/you-can-totally-bs-a-bser/
The Digital Ludeme Project is using AI to learn the rules of ancient board games by Grant Currin
- Schultz, I. (2019, September 26). Researchers Are Using Artificial Intelligence to Reconstruct Ancient Games. Atlas Obscura; Atlas Obscura. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ancient-games-artificial-intelligence
- Digital Ludeme Project. (2021). Ludeme.eu. http://ludeme.eu/index.html
- Play the games: https://ludii.games/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from |
| 0:04.9 | Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff. And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you'll learn about |
| 0:09.0 | why learning too much about your passion may make you less passionate about it and how researchers are using artificial intelligence to learn |
| 0:15.9 | the rules of ancient board games. We'll also test your podcast knowledge |
| 0:20.0 | with this month's Curiosity Challenge trivia game. |
| 0:22.8 | Let's satisfy and challenge some curiosity. |
| 0:26.4 | Have you ever met someone who is such an expert on their hobby |
| 0:31.3 | that they hardly seem to enjoy it anymore? |
| 0:34.0 | Well, you're not alone. |
| 0:35.0 | A new study of passionate film buffs, beer drinkers, and wine lovers |
| 0:40.0 | suggests that learning too much about your passion may actually make you less passionate |
| 0:45.9 | about it. Luckily, there's also an easy fix. |
| 0:50.4 | Researchers from the University of Massachusetts and Northwestern University started their study of people's passions by analyzing online reviews. |
| 0:59.0 | They looked at six million observations made by more than 700,000 consumers about films on |
| 1:06.4 | rotten tomatoes, beers on beer advocates, and wines on cellar tracker. |
| 1:11.3 | To keep track of the emotions the reviewers expressed over time, |
| 1:15.8 | they measured each review against a scored emotional lexicon. |
| 1:20.0 | It's basically a glossary of words like loved and distressing |
| 1:24.3 | that experts have scored according to the kind and amount of emotion they express. |
| 1:29.7 | Whether the hobbyists were reviewing beer or wine or films, they got less emotional with every review. |
| 1:37.8 | As they learned more, tasted more, and watched more, they became numb to their passions. |
| 1:44.0 | Next, the researchers asked different people to respond emotionally to photos. |
... |
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