The Fifth Annual Brilliant 10

Luis von Ahn, 27


The Matrix Builder


If something´s too hard for computers, he tricks human processing units into solving the problem

Most artificial-intelligence researchers face the gargantuan task of making computers think like humans. Carnegie Mellon University professor Luis von Ahn works the other way around. He harnesses tens of thousands of people´s reasoning skills for those rare yet important jobs that are too hard for computers. His strategy is to make the work seem like a game. Von Ahn´s most popular application tackles one of the most difficult tasks in computer science: labeling every image on the Internet. Computers can´t make fine distinctions in visual information, so in the ESP Game (espgame.org), randomly paired online participants compete to label photos from the Web. If it´s successful, your next Google Images search might turn up exactly what you´re
looking for.-Elizabeth Svoboda