Artificially Intelligent

S55E01 - Sheffield vs Warwick

For years, I have been planning to learn how to code so that I could extract some gnarly data from the history of University Challenge matches.

I haven't learnt how to code, but I have learned something else. Similar to Hanlon's Razor, which states:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

I should have followed a rule that I knew deep inside myself.

Never assign to coding that which is adequately analysed by a pivot table.

I have compiled all the University Challenge matches since 1995 into a single, massive table, which can be readily analysed using pivot tables (sometimes you don't even need a pivot table, sometimes you can get by using filters on the headers. Why has it taken me so long to do this?)

Already, this mega table has provided me with an interesting piece of lore about the two teams who are playing each other in the series opener.

Sheffield and Warwick have faced off only once in UC history. A quarter-final from 2003, which Sheffield won 180-175.

If you Google Sheffield Warwick University Challenge 2003, you get the results as shown above, which references a tweet I wrote last week and makes up some absolute gobbledygook.

This won't be the first time I reference AI in my reviews of this series, but I think it's a good place to start. For all that it is claimed AI is close to taking over, it is still remarkably stupid and hallucinatory.

The text of my tweet is this:

University Challenge returns on Monday 14th July! Sheffield take on Warwick in a rematch of a QF from 2003, which Sheffield won by the tightest of margins, 180-175.

The AI has invented the fact that this quarter-final was a rematch of another quarter-final from the same series. And I know that the quarter-final format can be a bit confusing, but that's not something that can happen. It then says that Warwick reached the final, which they didn't, because they had been beaten (apparently twice) by Sheffield in the quarter-finals.

The final that year was between Birkbeck and Cranfield. Christ's College, Cambridge didn't even compete in that series, though they did, of course, beat Warwick in the 2025 final. The score in that match was 175-170, which is pretty close to 180-175, but it shouldn't be enough to confuse an entity made of pure numbers.

Anyway, that's enough of an AI overview (until the next paragraph, but I didn't know that when I wrote the intro yesterday). It's been two months without a single starter for ten, so here's your first. Shoutout to Cosmic Pumpkin, back in with the YouTube upload in record time - watch the episode here before reading the rest of the review.

Trying to find out what the Sheffield mascot is (see above), I am treated to another excellently terrible AI interpretation. Apparently I am not thinking of an actual globe. Instead, I am thinking of the vomeronasal organ. Of course, how silly of me. One now wonders whether the globe in the mascot's mouth is perhaps a fun, cartoony-y representation of the vomeronasal organ. A visual metaphor of some kind. Probably not.

Can anyone who knows let me know in the comments what the cat with a globe in its mouth actually is? Thanks.

Someone on Twitter reckoned that the Warwick mascot was a picture of Sean Lock, and I thought it might have been Keith Haring. But some non AI-based sleuthing reveals it to be Ethan Webb, a Warwick quizzer who never made it onto the show.

Howarth gets the first buzz of the series, but his guess of Finland is wrong, allowing Sheffield skipper Price to take the ten points with Ukraine. Two bonuses on David Lynch followed, before a second Price starter - jerk (that was the answer, I'm not calling him a jerk) - extended their lead. They manage a hat-trick on old cities, including a lovely punt of Plovdiv, and find themselves fifty points clear.

Price then completes his own personal hat-trick with Durer, and they are harshly denied five points for giving The Book of Jacob instead of The Books of Jacob.

Only now is it time for Warwick to get off the mark, with Howarth, undeterred by his earlier blunder, taking the picture starter with ANC when shown a graphic of the South African election of 2024. They take a full set of bonuses, but Price can't be stopped and grabs a fourth starter for the Yorkshire quartet.

Dobbie takes the first non-Price starter for Sheffield, and they are pulling out of reach. Lewis and Elsisi get in on the act, stretching the gap to 115 points.

A total blowout, it seems, but here is another piece of lore about recent UC series openers - they always choose a banger.

Last year's was a thrashing, but a very high-scoring thrashing, and the previous two years were very close, so despite the large gap at this stage, I had an idea something might be about to happen.

Was it going to be a comeback or a shellacking, though?

Meditations from Kluzowski was the first hint we had a comeback on our hands.

Now comes perhaps the key moment of the episode. Mishearing the question as asking for a Shakesperean title character, Elsisi buzzes with Othello and loses five points. Dennett, with the first of four late starters, steals ten with Desdemona, and Warwick go on the charge.

Kluzowksi takes the second picture starter with Degas, then its Mary I from Dennett. Price puts a brief halt to their renaissance with Kepler (that would be a better line if Kepler was around a century or so earlier), but all the momentum is with Warwick...

Levesley knows that Oswald was the forerunner of Mickey Mouse, and Dennett knows about liberalism and its discontents; then Levesley can't believe his luck that plasma comes up next. Warwick are now five points adrift, and I am harbouring hopes that the final score will be exactly the same as the 2003 quarter-final.

But Warwick aren't to be derailed, and blast well beyond 180-170, finishing with a gap of 40 points, having ended the match with a 170-15 run. Woof!

Sheffield 170 - 210 Warwick

Warwick take revenge for that twenty-two-year-old quarter-final with a very well-rounded second half performance. Sheffield will most likely be back as one of the high-scoring losers, but will still feel miffed that they let this one slip through their grasp.

I'll see you next week for UCL vs SOAS. I wonder what nonsense AI will concoct about those teams.

University Challenge is, of course, a great example of the value of good old-fashioned human intelligence, as displayed by Warwick and Sheffield tonight.

UCL and SOAS have never played each other, but they may well have practised against each other, given that it is only an 8-minute walk between the two campuses.