In regards to artificial intelligence, noted billionaire, entrepreneur and technology pioneer Elon Musk has said, “…we are summoning the demon”. Musk, an investor in artificial intelligence, believes it to be our species greatest existential threat.

One QUEST student bent on accelerating the pace of our demise is Steven Gresh, a senior mechanical engineering major and computer science minor in Cohort 22. In his mechanical engineering capstone (ENME440), Steven worked on teaching a computer to play (and win) rock, paper, scissors against a human player using machine learning.

Using a Java-based coding language and Microsoft Kinect, Steven was able to train the computer to identify when a player is playing rock, paper, or scissors, and over multiple games, to recognize and predict player tendencies and strategies in order to defeat them at a roughly 60% win rate. While it may seem like only a game of chance, Steven’s efforts represent the growing capability of machines to learn, recognize, and analyze data, and retrain themselves to perform complex tasks. Perhaps one day, QUEST students like Steven will be designing sentient robots in 190H!