This month, a number of robots made headlines competing in human sports.
In China, robots competed to complete half marathons alongside humans:
This event marks the first time robots have outpaced humans in a race. The race started at the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, with human runners and robots having their own tracks. Someday, maybe they will run side by side?
Robots are also competing against humans in tennis:
Ace, a tennis robot created by Sony, beat professional tennis players under competitive rules. Of course, the tennis robot requires a massive installation surrounding the table with cameras pointed every which way. As per the Guardian: “Ace sidesteps some tricky aspects of table tennis by having an eight-jointed arm on a movable base that does not have to stand on two legs. And instead of seeing the ball with two eyes, it draws on images from multiple cameras that view the entire court from different angles and track the position and spin of the ball.” I’ll be more impressed when a humanoid robot with a single perspective can beat a human competitor.
Still, I am floored by these developments. The robots are starting to look like the ones out of science fiction! Scifi is a form of prophecy, I am realizing.
