20Q is the toy that can really read your mind. It is based on the traditional guessing game that has been bought into the 21st century. It can be played on most long journeys, school trips and holidays with parents. The idea of the game is like you think of anything, and that literally means anything, from your next door neighbour to a tub of lard, then answer the questions the 20Q throws at you as honestly and accurately as you can. The 20 questions will be answerable with either “yes”, “no”, “sometimes” or “don’t know”.

The 20Q can guess what you are thinking.

The artificial intelligence behind the game is a neural-network, similar to a human brain. A brain, or neural-network, is built from neurons connected by synaptic connections. A human brain has about one hundred trillion (100,000,-000,000,000) synaptic connections. The 20Q.net online version has about 10 million (10,000,000), and the pocket version has about 250,000.

The game uses the neural-network to choose the next question as well as deciding what to guess.