rock, paper, scissors

In today’s New York Times, you can PLAY AGAINST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE in a game of rock, paper, scissors. Make sure to choose the “veteran” option of the AI for more of a challenge.

It uses its past history against all human players to try to predict your next choice and gain an edge. But so far I’m doing OK against the AI: 5 wins, 5 losses, 2 ties.

Obviously, the artificial intelligence is capitalizing on the inability of humans to do things randomly without falling into subtle long-term patterns. (Nate Silver once used this premise to make an accusation of faked polling data at a service where the final digits of various poll results seemed to be anything but random.)

According to Wikipedia, the game may have originated in China under the Han Dynasty. I’d love to know when and why it first spread elsewhere.