Photo: AP Photo/Achmad IbrahimHow long will it take until someone allows a football team to have two robots in its composition?
Should we remember the name Tiangong Ultra? Only if you plan to compete in a quiz. Otherwise, that name will be relatively quickly forgotten even though it is lik achieved an incredible result, he ran a hundred meters on two legs in 9,39 seconds, faster than the world record held by Usain Bolt. Well, we know and remember that name.
This result was achieved at the World Games of Humanoid Robots, which are being held in Beijing for the second time; the first ones were last August, exactly one year ago. There were 51 disciplines on the program, of which about thirty were sports, and about two thousand robots from 16 countries competed. The robots surpassed the athletes in running one hundred and four hundred meters and high jump. They are two meters behind in the long jump. Expect that to be surpassed next year, judging by the robot's progress. Last year's sprint winner, whose name we don't remember, ran about 20 seconds for a hundred meters.
Thirty years ago, more precisely in 1996 and 1997, Garry Kasparov, then the undisputed world chess champion, played two matches against the IBM computer Big Blue. The first won by four to two, but the second lost by three and a half to two and a half. And that was the beginning of the end of the popularity of chess. Something has appeared that can beat a human and that according to tournament rules made for humans.
Should athletes be worried now? Not in the least. Man has never been an athletically superior being. Many animal species run faster, jump farther and higher, and lift heavier than humans, let alone machines. Even if some chipmunk wanted to pit a human and a humanoid robot against the same starting plane, the human would win if the tournament rules were followed as in the case of chess.
Robot sprinters can run, but they can't stop, so the race ends with them slamming into the mat, after which, most often, parts of them fall off. Or they catch fire. This means that they would not be able to successfully run the three races, qualification, semi-final and final, which is a requirement at the world championships or the Olympic Games. What can we say about doping control, mandatory for competitors, unthinkable for robots at least at the moment. Let's not just drag the issue of gender determination. It sounds absurd until it's on its way to a medal, ask the chess players.
That doesn't necessarily mean that robots will forever compete with each other in Beijing or elsewhere. Their humanity inevitably leads to them going toe-to-toe with people at some point, and this is more likely to happen in ball sports where strength and speed take a backseat to creativity, trickery and wit. Even if you equip them with the best artificial intelligence, they will hardly save Messi who doesn't even know which way to dribble.
Here is a bold thesis. In the next few years, it is very likely that robots will seriously play against humans, at least in exhibition matches. I am guessing that tennis could be the first sport, that is sports with a ball and a net, where the teams are separated and there is no physical contact. The robots would start from the lowest rank, and even lower than that, they would first play against the team of engineers who made them, and then move up in order. At this pace of development, they would probably reach the level of world champions in a few years. Those matches would only be interesting if they were even, as soon as the robots started overwhelmingly winning, they would become pointless. In a competitive sense. But robots will become indispensable in the training process, especially if you can program them to play like a certain tennis player, volleyball player, maybe even a football player.
Here's an even bolder question. How long will it be before someone allows a football team to have two robots? It's not as childish as you think. I'm guessing that the goalkeepers would be the first to hit.
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