Luis von Ahn

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Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also received his Ph.D. in 2005. Previously, Luis obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University in 2000. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research Fellowship, and became a MacArthur Fellow in 2006. His research includes CAPTCHAs and Human-based computation. His work has appeared in over 100 news outlets including The New York Times, CNN, USA Today, The BBC, and The Discovery Channel. Luis was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala.

Luis von Ahn also developed the ESP Game, a game in which two people are simultaneously given an image of the same picture, with no way to communicate. Each then lists a number of words/phrases that describe the picture within a time limit, and are rewarded with points for a match. This match turns out to be an accurate description of the picture, and can be successfully employed in a database for more accurate image search technology. The ESP Game has been licensed by Google in the form of the Google Image Labeler, and is used to improve the accuracy of the Google Image Search.