Intelligence QI

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Oh!

Good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening, good evening.

And welcome to an idiot-proof episode of QI for a quite interesting look at intelligence.

Joining us tonight are some of the biggest brains of Britain.

The discerning David Mitchell.

The judicious Jo Brand.

The perspicacious Phill Jupitus!

And the...Alan Davies.

And they're absolutely buzzing with intelligence. David goes...

-MASTERMIND THEME

-Jo goes...

MASTERMIND THEME

-Phill goes...

-MASTERMIND THEME

-And Alan goes...

-"Er, pass."

LAUGHTER

There we are.

Don't forget your "Nobody knows" jokers. Would you dream of forgetting them?

Yes, in this series there is one question to which nobody knows the answer.

Question one is pretty challenging and very much what is discussed by academics in the finest universities

so you may want to make notes. How do you get a goose interested in volleyball?

Jo?

I'd like to reply with a question. How do you get ANYONE interested in volleyball?

I believe the removal of clothes is part of the...

That's beach volleyball.

Well, when I say "in volleyball", I should use an indefinite article.

-There's being interested in volleyball and in a volleyball.

-Ah! Make one out of goose food.

Oddly enough, you don't need to do that. Their natural egg is light blue and flecked with grey.

Scientists have found that you can make the eggs bigger and bigger and really bright blue

with great big black polka dots and they'll sit on those instead.

-There's no upper limit...

-It's about the shape and the colour.

It's like us. We should eat enough food to keep ourselves alive, but we have no upper limit.

-We'll eat another bar of chocolate and end up looking like me.

-Is that why you wear the Cadbury's livery?

LAUGHTER

Hoping for a freebie as always.

It is, evolutionarily speaking, the bigger the egg, the more likely it is to want to sit on it

-because it's more likely to be a healthy, larger chick.

-"This will be the most amazing goose ever!"

And so they'll sit on a volleyball. That's a kind of flaw in nature, if you like.

We have to include ourselves in this. There are certain things we don't need in excess,

like sugar and fat and sex, but we spend lots of time eating chocolate and doing things on the internet.

Sounds like my perfect holiday. Sugar, fat and sex. Yes, please!

-But we've got the awareness that we do that.

-We do.

-The goose on the volleyball isn't thinking,

"This is a bit much. The world doesn't need giant geese."

You're right. We have the extra curse of consciousness that we are fools.

It's called supernormal stimuli and it seems to exist in a lot of species, actually.

Anyway, geese like their eggs the bigger the better.

They don't know when to stop, which seems stupid, but name an intelligent bird.

Yes?

Me.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

I don't think there are any intelligent birds. Their brains are so incredibly tiny.

-Well...

-Like an owl. I know this as a thing.

-65% of the skull is the eyes. The brain is virtually nothing.

-You're right.

It's very hard to judge in a bird.

Can they count, is one. There are birds that can count.

Cormorants can count to eight.

You may say, "No, hang on..." but they are used by Chinese fishermen.

-They catch a fish and drop it on the boat...

-One!

-And the eighth one they keep for themselves.

-Eight!

-"That's mine."

-Finished.

"Nine!" Erp!

But the generally smartest group is not smart because they count, but because they solve problems.

-These are the corvids.

-Crows!

-The crows, the ravens, the jackdaws,

the magpies. What's interesting is they can look at a problem.

I've seen experiments where they've had a gate that's pulled up on a string

which goes round a sort of pulley system and they will look at it

and then go straight to pull the right piece of string.

We've got film here, for example, of a crow. There. It hasn't seen this hook at all.

Ever. It's its first time.

It's working it out. It's seen that it has a bent end.

-And now it's pulling that out.

-How bizarre.

-Quite extraordinary.

And now it's got its food.

-They do seem like the most evil birds.

-They're often considered creatures of ill omen, aren't they?

But you're just seeing them with Carmina Burana playing.

-Imagine a crow...

-I should get something else for my iPod?

-Tijuana Taxi by Herb Alpert.

That's a nice crow. Put a sombrero on it, take the edge off it.

-But if you had Carmina Burana and a robin, you wouldn't think it was evil.

-I would!

-Would you?

Dirty bastard robin!

Anyway, there are intelligent birds and the crow family display intelligence aplenty.

How long does the perfect job interview last?

Yes, Jo?

How long does a blowjob take?

LAUGHTER

The extraordinary thing is the answer is exactly what I've got on my card - 12 seconds!

-LAUGHTER

-You're absolutely right!

Wow. Very good.

It does seem that 12 seconds is enough.

And, bizarrely, you don't even have to hear. You can see video of someone and most people will agree

to give him or her the job. After 12 seconds, the mind has been made up, it seems.

Something about the attitude, the confidence, whatever it is,

if it hasn't come across in 12 seconds, it won't.

-Or so it would seem. Have you ever had to apply for a job?

-Loads.

-Never got any of them.

-You're here, aren't you?

-True.

-But I slept with you, as you well know.

-One of the best 12 seconds of my life!

But I have applied for loads of jobs and not got a lot of them,

but so much is to do with appearance, isn't it?

As a fat person, you are pretty swiftly written off if there's a thin person in the offing.

-That sort of thing makes a really big difference.

-And they would never dare admit it.

Well, they told me a few times.

"We'd love to employ you, but we've got a thin person."

-"I understand."

-Outrageous! How about you, Alan? What have you done before you went into comedy?

-I never wanted to have a job.

-Really?!

-In the event of an interview, wear flip-flops.

-LAUGHTER

You will never be employed. Go in, put your feet up on the desk.

-And they'll get the next person in!

-That's fair.

We have here a list of job interview questions you shouldn't ask, if we're the interviewing panel.

You're not to ask, "Are you a smoker?" "Are you originally from the OK?" The UK!

But if you're interviewing for a cowboy, it's a good question.

I was going to say it's not OK to say, "Are you originally from the UK?" I screwed it up.

-"Do you have children who need to be looked after?"

-"In the event of a fire, will you stop working?"

"Do you plan to have children in future?" And then, "What are your weaknesses?" is a common one.

The temptation, of course, is to attempt to subvert it by naming a weakness that is a strength.

"Oh, my trouble is I'm just a terrible perfectionist. I can't stop until it's perfect."

-"I'm so punctual!"

-"My problem is I'm really nice. I'm too nice."

That is transparent. Don't do that. Say one that is not terrible,

like, "I tend to get bogged down in details, but I'm making an effort."

-"I'm a terrible thief."

-LAUGHTER

-"I love other people's stuff."

-"I can't concentr... Oh, look! A squirrel!"

"What are your weaknesses?" "Heroin and masturbating, not necessarily in that order."

-"What are your strengths?" Here's another one.

-"My odour. I've got a powerful odour.

"It only gets stronger as the day goes on."

LAUGHTER

-You're still wearing your "I don't want a bloody job" hat!

-"These feet stink by four o'clock."

Don't say, "I'm confident, outgoing and a natural leader." That suggests a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler.

Say, "I have good interpersonal skills." If I met someone who said that, I'd get a rusty knife and...

-Until they bled to death!

-"I've got good interpersonal skills" is proof that you don't!

-Exactly!

You immediately annoy the person you're talking to.

"I'm comfortable taking instructions from idiots like you."

LAUGHTER

There are weird things like the person interviewing you falls asleep. The smart thing to do

-is leave a note saying, "I enjoyed meeting you."

-Is it?!

-I'd say that's an incredibly unassertive thing to do.

-I agree.

"Wake up, you lazy sod! This is my life we're talking about!"

So you mustn't lick their face?

-LAUGHTER

-Now that would be good.

Imagine them waking up and you're there with your tongue on their nose.

I had a job in the Civil Service - loved that(!) - for six months and they asked me the wrong question.

If they'd said to me, "Are you likely in three months' time to get pissed in the club bar,

"go back to your desk, fall asleep and then fall off your chair?"

I could have said yes and they could have not given me the job, but that is what happened and I got sacked.

-They stupidly didn't have a question for that.

-The wrong question.

-No one but themselves to blame.

-Absolutely.

They also ask, "How many piano tuners are there in the UK?"

-What?!

-It tests your initiative or your wit when you give an answer.

"Will you take advantage of Bring Your Kestrel To Work Thursday?"

The whole thing sounds horrible, the world of job interviews.

The thing that seems unfair to me is people expected to pretend to care about jobs they don't care about.

You should be allowed to say, "You can't put in my contract that I have to seem like I give a shit".

-LAUGHTER

-That's expecting too much.

I really like living in a country with such poor customer service.

I've got respect for that.

"This is a horrible train, you're tearing tickets. Of course you're in an awful mood."

Now that you've put it like that I shall feel better about it.

Why have a cheesy grin on your face if you work in an awful supermarket?

It's the sign either of a liar or a moron.

-Exactly.

-It's funny when people are rude in shops, isn't it? It still takes you by surprise.

My wife went to a shop today to buy an ironing basket. "I've never heard of such a thing.

-"I have no idea where you would find something like that."

-"You've just put two words next to each other

-"in a mad way!"

-Me and my mates would deliberately go to a Chinese restaurant

near Wardour Street because they were so foul to you.

The best ever time we went there, we were actually moved mid-meal to a different floor.

LAUGHTER

"You go upstair now!"

"Excuse me?" "You go upstair now. This table booked."

"I'm in the middle of my dinner!" "You go upstair!"

An army of waiters moved our meal. I was pissing myself!

LAUGHTER Fantastic.

Job interviews only need to last 12 seconds, it seems. Would you like to see an ingenious interlude?

-I've been trying to get better at these chemistry experiments.

-These are my favourite bits.

They are fun. This is a speaker, as you can see.

This is cornflour mixed with water, as you would buy in any high street cornflour shop or supermarket.

-It's used as a thickening agent.

-It's not green, though.

-We've made i green to make it stand out more.

It has a particular property. It's a non-Newtonian fluid. It's very peculiar.

I'm going to pour it here. Gloopy, I think, is the word.

And unlike most liquids which change their viscosity according to their temperature,

these change according to pressure

and we hope that a bit of sound played by Ben, our sound man...

-LOW VIBRATING SOUND Hello!

-It's beginning to vibrate.

As it gets louder, the effect will get more extraordinary... It's a wonderful feeling.

-LAUGHTER

-I might be able to give it a tickle with a spoon. There we go.

There you are.

If I keep... Oops!

And you start to get basically little Morphs making love with each other.

LAUGHTER

-It's so weird.

-Isn't it? There you go.

You have just screwed every stereo of every QI viewer.

Isn't that creepy?

-Margaret, get the cornflour!

-It's like little wavy, green people.

And they're all rising and making love.

-That's what you say!

-You're adding that.

-It looks like it.

-I think they're being burned alive.

-Some of them are waving.

-"Help me, I'm drowning!"

Isn't it extraordinary?

And all that is is water and cornflour. It's quite amazing.

-What?!

-It's the actual vibrations, the physical effect that changes the viscosity.

Let's all gather round.

-They climb out... They look as if they're trying to climb out.

-Yes.

-It's rather beautiful.

-That is fantastic.

-Isn't it?

It's like a glimpse into hell, isn't it?

-All the souls writhing around, trying to escape.

-That's just what it looks like.

-Maybe it is.

-Yes, souls in agony.

And then it goes quiet again and settles back into liquid form.

-Isn't that amazing?

-APPLAUSE

Well, I've got, um...

I've got clingfilm, but they've not furnished me with a wet wipe.

Oh, look at the muck on 'ere!

-Would you like a tissue?

-"I was at work tonight and I got green gunk all over me purple suit!

-"Eeh, I look like Jack Nicholson!"

-Oh, there we are.

There are various non-Newtonian fluids. They are working on a liquid armour,

which is weird, but the higher the pressure of the bullet, the more solid the liquid will become.

-How am I only seeing this for the first time tonight?

-It's exciting.

Every time I go round someone's house, why aren't they playing dub reggae and getting the cornflour out

You know what to do next time. Now, what is this robot designed to do?

-"MASTERMIND" THEME

-Blimey! Yes?

To overthrow the puny humans?

That's what most robots are designed to do.

-It's for hanging a jacket on.

-This is actually an iron-shirt robot.

It irons your shirt. You put on a shirt and it puffs up and irons it, gets rid of its creases.

I think it might be a replacement husband because it's just sitting there doing fuck-all.

That would be a good job. The fact is, there was so much promise for robots

and a lot of artificial intelligence research.

Sorry, is it just this atmosphere? Are you thirsty?

Can we have a drink? Thank you.

-I've got a friend here who's going to give me a drink.

-It's not like Yo! Sushi, is it?

-No. Here we are.

APPLAUSE

'This is for you.'

Thank you.

That's very kind of you. Welcome to QI, Asimo.

'Thank you, Stephen. It is great to be here.'

Isn't he marvellous?

"Here I am, brain the size of a planet, opening doors..."

-You're the most advanced humanoid robot on the planet? Is that right?

-'That is what they tell me.'

Why don't you show us what you can do?

'I would love to.'

-Is he going to kill me?

-Honestly, I promise you you are going to be impressed.

I mean, this is... This movement that is so simple to us...

They can do calculations we could never dream of doing, any computer, but this movement he's doing...

He's going to go down a step, right?

-Give him time.

-If he falls over, that's 20 million quid up the Swanee!

APPLAUSE

Now...

LAUGHTER

Now he'll do something that I think no-one in this room will ever have seen, which is truly miraculous.

"Studio audience killed by runaway robot!"

No, he's going to run. I'd like you to run, Asimo. This takes him a bit of time.

Both feet will leave the ground and he will run.

There he goes.

Ohh! APPLAUSE

Isn't that amazing?

-It is.

-Isn't that incredible?

Well done.

Well done, Asimo. I think it's only fair that you get some points.

'Thanks, but what I would really lik is a dance with Jo.'

LAUGHTER

-Oh, my word!

-I think that can be arranged.

He wouldn't say that if he'd met me.

'Hi, Jo.'

Hi, Asimo. I'm married. Sorry.

DISCO MUSIC

Oh, yes!

CHEERING

Well done, everybody.

-CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-And he's bowing!

LAUGHTER

Amazing!

-I've scored!

-Thank you very much, Asimo.

Goodbye then.

-What's the battery like on one of these?

-Love you!

APPLAUSE

There he goes.

-Round the corner.

-I can't help feeling he's heavily weaponised.

-Should be in the movies.

-Why do you think he's called Asimo?

It's bloody depressing that even a robot can dance better than I can!

I presume it's an acronym, is it?

-Asimo?

-Is it a tribute to Isaac Asimov?

-No, that's what a lot of people assume.

It's a coincidence. It's from the Japanese. "Asi" means "feet" and "mo" is short for "movement".

They're most proud, you can see why, of his extraordinary ability.

The amount of technology that goes into a machine that can walk bipedally like that and run!

I'm not absolutely sure about the voice. It sounds a bit like Michael Jackson which is a bit chilling.

Yeah, it would be more reassuring if it was a mechanical voice.

What, like a more sort of...

GRUFF VOICE: "Hello, Jo, do you want to dance?"

Or maybe Bernard Manning?

-Or Ste-phen Haw-king, it could talk to you like him.

-That's very good.

I think it would have been more reassuring if its dancing was like robotic dancing,

rather than trying to be human.

I find its attempts to be human tragic.

LAUGHTER

Well, aren't you easily pleased(?)

I'd like for it to be like Jerry Springer. The robot runs on and goes "Who are you cal-ling rub-bish?"

LAUGHTER

Then big blokes in QI black T-shirts have to pull it off... LAUGHTER

ROBOTIC VOICE: "Get off me, you slags! Get off me, you slags!

"He was asking for it."

"I want a DNA test!"

LAUGHTER

APPLAUSE

At the moment, he can recognise people, objects and gestures. He has cameras in there.

He can calculate distances and the direction of movement and create flexible routes to a destination.

He can hear and speak to an extent. He can understand about 50 different calls and greetings,

as well as 30 different commands and react to them accordingly.

There's a long way to go, but I was bloody impressed. Thank you very much to Asimo and his handlers.

APPLAUSE

That brings us to the all-too human world of general ignorance. Fingers on buzzers, if you please.

How many piano tuners are there in the UK?

Is the right answer!

-'Nobody knows.'

-Yes, get in there...

-APPLAUSE

Yes, it's a very strange thing,

but even the British Association of Piano Tuners has no idea how many piano tuners there are.

Somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 is their guess.

-That's a very wide gap.

-It is a very wide gap. They just don't know.

You could try and work it out. You could look in the Yellow Pages and count them.

Don't people have to put what their job is in the Census?

A piano tuner is often a moonlighting job, not necessarily a full-time one.

Now, when was time immemorial?

# The Simpsons! #

LAUGHTER

HUMS "THE SIMPSONS" THEME TUNE

-The time before The Simpsons started?

-That would count.

-I don't understand what "time immemorial" means.

-If you say, for example...

If you can prove in a court of law that you've been grazing your sheep on some land since time immemorial,

you don't have to re-justify your right to do it.

-It's an established practice that has been done since time immemorial.

-It doesn't mean "for ever"?

-No.

It specifically, originally meant the 6th of July, 1189.

LAUGHTER

There must have been a lot of excitement in the run-up to that. "It's time immemorial tomorrow!"

-And there'd be...

-"At last we can get things sorted.

"Whatever's happening tomorrow, we stick to."

It was the day of the coronation of a particular sovereign in our country.

-Richard I.

-You read History and that's damn good. It wasn't a wasted education. It was indeed Richard I

who was crowned in 1189.

It was decided then that the first Statute of Westminster,

which was a few years after his reign, it defined his reign as the limit of legal memory.

Did they have to raise such an army just to catch those two seagulls?

LAUGHTER

"There they are!

"After them, men!

"They've been flying since time immemorial!"

The one on the right is saying, "I can't believe we're doing all this for those two poxy seagulls!"

Do you think the French, when they saw them, thought, "Oh, my God, it's the Red Cross people!

"Try and not meet their eye. Sorry, mate, I've got to go. I can't stop."

It brings us to the end of this QI IQ test,

so hand in your papers and I'll tally up the scores and oh, my goodness me!

Well, it's very exciting, actually.

Top of the class

with four points

is David Mitchell!

APPLAUSE

In second place with minus four is Phill Jupitus.

APPLAUSE

And in third place with minus eight is Jo Brand.

APPLAUSE

In clear last place with minus 16 is Alan Davies.

APPLAUSE

But...

the clear, clear winner this week with an extraordinary 32 points

is the magnificent Asimo!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

So it's good night from David, Phill, Jo, Alan and not forgetting Asimo and me.

And I just want to share with you the cover story of a recent National Geographic magazine,

which is about the recreation by archaeologists at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey.

It's the oldest temple in the world. Some people think it's the oldest building in the world.

It's 11,600 years old and what excites me is that it looks like this.

Does it remind you of anything?

Good night. On that bombshell, good night.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd 2011

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