THE HUMAN ADVANTAGE

摘要

Which is prettier? Apictureofablack cat sleeping onapilloworone of a curly-haired brunette woman in a miniskirt? I've got only a few seconds to decide. I vote for the cat. I'm sitting in a laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, playing Matchin', a computer game developed by Luis von Ahn. In the game, two players—von Ahn and I, seated at different terminals—watch as pairs of pictures swiped off the Internet flash up on our screens. Our goal is to pick the one we think both of us will find more attractive, not necessarily the one we personally prefer. This requires a sort of mindmeld, and it doesn't always work: Von Ahn picks the girl in the miniskirt instead of the cat. We've got one minute to process as many pictures as we can, so we race on frantically, evaluating photos in an instant.