[The AI Contest] Coming soon !

The AI Contest - Coming soon!

Here's a new project for Steem! Some fun for programmers and sociologists alike: AI contests. It's not only a game, though: there's money for the winners and knowledge for all.

I provide a game, inspired by popular game theory case studies, and ask the Steem community to submit algorithms to play that game. Then rewards are split between the best performing AIs.

(read the french translation)

Alright, but why?

You're on Steem, right? As you know life of the community depends on two things:

• Programmers
• Understanding people and how they react

The AI Contest is providing a fun way to mix those two ideas. You want to better understand how community reacts to a problem? You want to learn coding? Psychology? Just relax a little from the Steem bot you are writing? Just hop in the contest, it's free to get in and some cash will come at the end.

And you will help advance cognitive sciences!

Why is that mess about games?

Quoting Wikipedia:

In short, it's studying how people react to situations that look like a game, when they can win or loose from the situation, depending on other people' choices. It's both mathematics, economics and psychology. You get addict. And it has lots and lots of applications in how people react to the blockchain technologies, no need to explain that to you steemains.

For a starter, go for the prisonner's dilemma. And once you got the idea, listen to XKCD's view on game theory

I heard contest. How does it work?

It's free to get in, and some prize money will be shared between winners. If you're a seasoned steemian you should be familiar with the concept. If not, then read about the magic of the Steem network here or here (more technical) or here if you have time.

More technically, 90% authoring rewards from contest posts (including this one, translations and comments) will be shared by contest winners. Contests should happen every week and payout should come shortly after.

The rules are simple:

• give your answer to the contest as a comment. You may submit several answers. You can post code, alink to a Gist or simply an English explanation
• upvote to add rewards to the pool (of course you don't have to but it wouldn't be fair)
• after one week I will make your answers compete with one another, write a report
• ... and redistribute prizes

Do I need to be a programmer

No. Lots of people around are, and they will surely help you translate an idea to Python. I will gladly do my share

The most important thing in playing a game is not writing the bot, it's being clever!

Also, this is a great way to learn programming, isn't it? It's not that hard and a little knowledge a great asset for every steemian

Why Python

You may want to learn programming? I want to learn Python. And it's a good language for starters: quick, compact and easy to learn

So where's the contest?

Tomorrow!

I will post the first contest tomorrow around midnight CEST (6 PM in NYC, 8 AM in Seoul), with AiContest tag. Stay tuned!

Do you think this contest is useful for the community? Tell me your opinion, comments most welcome!

(many thanks to the authors I link to, including anonymous Wikipedians)