They think it's all over… at least for human footballers.
The pitch wasn't the only artificial element on display at the soccer match in China on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took on each other in Beijing in three side games powered by artificial intelligence.
Modern games face accusations of becoming almost robotic by obsessing with tactical perfection, but Chinese games have shown that AI will not yet take on the job of Kylian Mbappé.
Video of Humanoid Kickabout showed that the robot struggled to kick the ball or struggled to stand upright and ran a platform where he was earning yellow cards for diving his flesh and blood counterparts. At least two robots were extended after they were unable to regain their feet after going to the ground.
Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, a company that provided robotic players, said the sports competition provided the ideal testing ground for humanoid robots. He said that, judging from Saturday's evidence, the humanoids have some way of holding themselves on the football pitch, but that humans can play robots in the future.
Cheng said: “In the future, we may arrange for robots to play soccer with humans. This means we need to ensure that the robots are completely safe.”
Professor Ramamorathy of Subramania, chairman of robot learning and autonomy at the University of Edinburgh, said that the robots resemble humanoids in tournaments such as the Robo Cup, despite falls on the upward development curve.
“It's certainly impressive to see the year-over-year progress in such robots,” he said.
The competition was fought among university teams, which adapted the robots with their own algorithms. In the final match, Twingua University's Two Robotics defeated the Shanhai team of China Agricultural University with a score of 5-3 to win the championship.
One Tsinhu supporter praised the competition while celebrating the victory. “They are [THU] He said. “However, the Sanhai team was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises.”
