Hypothesis : there's no sport that can't be made more interesting by replacing humans with robots. Discuss.
"The world's first robot ski tournament was held in Hoengseong (South Korea) on the sidelines of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. 8 teams from local universities and tech companies took part in the inaugural event. Each team prepared a self-driving humanoid robot which is engineered to ski down the slopes on its own. Amid the freezing cold and wind, some robots crashed or failed not navigate themselves through the flagpoles. Others successfully completed the run."
"We programmed the robot to imitate human movement by maneuvering 21 motors. It has cameras and sensors that can recognize the red and blue colors of the flag gates. Therefore, it is able to avoid the flagpoles as it skis down the slope."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQxbLkOsv5Q
"More" == less!
ReplyDeleteSnooker, because it's too easy for machines. Robots would just clear up every time. A series of 147 breaks one after the other.
ReplyDeleteBut broadly speaking I think you're on to something. Is there an autonomous Formula One yet?
Related to this I would like to see an "unlimited" class in many sports, where athletes are permitted any and all enhancements possible. Drugs, cybernetics and so on.
Mat Brown with regards to the snooker, I would say a 147 is not that much of a sure thing, especially if the robot has to be bipedal and use a regulation cue.
ReplyDeleteI've long wanted an enhanced Olympics, just imagine the medical breakthroughs. Drugs used to increase lung capacity/efficiency would be life changing for people with respiratory problems.
Perhaps bowling would not be more interesting, because it might be too easy to design a robot which could get a perfect 300 score every time.
ReplyDeleteIf they're programmed to look and act like the Three Stooges, then the statement is self-evidently true. QED
ReplyDeleteMat Brown of course will not work at all. There's no robot which may win in snooker with good human player, and probably even moderate amateur may win.
ReplyDeleteOf course it is possible, some company build such robot working on prepared table, which is not right. If we want to compare cases it should be humanoid walking around the table, which is far, far, far from ability of present robot technology, even within several years probably....
Kazimierz Kurz - snooker/pool in software is a solved problem and has been for a very long time. Nearly ten years ago gantry robots rigged over standard, unmodified tables were already effectively unbeatable by humans (see below).
ReplyDeleteA few years after that, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMx1xW2E4Gg
Today we have highly capable bipedal robots with sophisticated vision systems. Quite likely the only reason an unbeatable snooker robot doesn't exist is that it would be fairly boring to make - other robot sports are far more interesting in research terms.
wired.com - Video: Pool-Playing Robot Is Unbeatable | WIRED