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Curiosity Weekly

Using AI to Play Ancient Board Games

Curiosity Weekly

Warner Bros. Discovery

Science

4.6963 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

Episodes referenced in Curiosity Challenge Trivia game:

The Digital Ludeme Project is using AI to learn the rules of ancient board games by Grant Currin

Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY


Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/using-ai-to-play-ancient-board-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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