[HN Gopher] Robot AI beats world-class curling competitors (2020) ___________________________________________________________________ Robot AI beats world-class curling competitors (2020) Author : pmontra Score : 71 points Date : 2021-03-02 18:12 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com) | snow_mac wrote: | Its a neat concept, but this is shuffleboard, not curling. I was | expecting a set of robots, a pusher and the ones sweeping. I've | done curling before, it's a lot of fun and work. They need a | robot that can do more then throw the stone, they need to show it | sweeping into victory. | [deleted] | birdyrooster wrote: | In curling, do the rules state that the team disqualified for | not sweeping the path for the stone? | tbenst wrote: | The players weren't allowed to sweep. | dwighttk wrote: | No but if you don't let the other team sweep it isn't quite | the same game. | Asraelite wrote: | Hypothetically, could such a robot with much greater | accuracy win a game without sweeping if its human opponents | were allowed to sweep? | EGreg wrote: | Yes! Why should the robot sweep exactly? | datapolitical wrote: | No, you don't _have_ to sweep, but you 're allowed to. | Playing without sweeping is throwing out half the game, and a | big part of what makes it hard. | [deleted] | 1-6 wrote: | Although curling is an Olympic event, it was introduced in 1924 | and then resumed in 1988. It seems like a skill-oriented (rather | than physical) sport. I wonder what it will take to get e-Sports | into the Olympics. | | "A sport or discipline is included in the Olympic program if the | IOC determines it to be widely practiced around the world, that | is, the popularity of a given sport or discipline is indicated by | the number of countries that compete in it." | wwww4all wrote: | Olympics added beach volleyball because they needed ratings and | advertisers. | | Curling was added because it's ok winter sport that draw enough | viewers and advertisers. | ska wrote: | > It seems like a skill-oriented (rather than physical) sport. | | Have you tried it? It's not nothing, physically speaking. | dragontamer wrote: | Golf and Archery are also considered skill-oriented sports. | | Yeah, there's a level of physical exertion. Olympic archers | only use 50lb bows however. Its a level of strength pretty | much anyone (even non-athletes) can reach. Gone are the days | of 100lb or 150lb longbows (weapons of war half-a-millennium | ago). | | Golf requires you to walk 18-holes while smacking the ball | every now and then. I do get tired from swinging the clubs | (I'm out of practice, and those weird back / stomach muscles | go tired unless you practice). Still, its considered a skill- | sport rather than a strength sport. | ska wrote: | I suppose that's fair enough. The peak and average exertion | for curling is well above either of those, but it's clearly | not the physical strength/endurance that determines | winners. Perhaps an odd entry point for e-sports though, | given examples like you have given. | michaelmior wrote: | I was not expecting it when I started, but I recall coming | home sore from curling practice. | boogies wrote: | There was an interesting thread about e-sports in the Olympics | eight months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23726597 | | IMO Olympic sports should have rules that everyone is allowed | to use, study, modify, and share variants of, in other words | they should give players the Free Software movement's Four | Freedoms1. This way the rules are accessible and adaptable. | Good candidates might be Quake or a freed NES Tetris or Super | Smash Bros. Melee. The latter two have benefited from being | reverse-engineered enough to be modified by their communities | for better training and competitive play. | | 1: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html | quacked wrote: | >LF2M tank dps olypmic gold medal round | mhh__ wrote: | As someone who enjoys (but is absolutely hopeless at) both an | olympic sport and an esport, they shouldn't mix | jvanderbot wrote: | "Humans become even better at curling thanks to robotic assisted | throwing" | | Non-adversarial language would go a long way with AI headlines. | These are tools, not foes. | at-fates-hands wrote: | The thing right now is that the majority of headlines these | days with AI is showcasing how its beating humans at their own | games. The media has put AI in an adversarial role on purpose. | | I'm not sure what the point is unless used as a warning of how | this type of technology _could be_ negatively affecting humans | lives in the short run? | DenisM wrote: | The task at hand seems to be a good fit for closed-loop control | automation. Much like cruise control - observe output, correct | input. Perhaps they don't have the time for enough input/output | iterations to dial in the throw? It'd be nice if they mentioned | that. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation#Open-loop_and_close... | klmadfejno wrote: | I'm not sure if this really captures what's difficult about | interacting with the physical world. This feels like a task for | which a machine is obviously better suited than humans, and is | being implemented using specialized hardware for the task. Kind | of cool, but it doesn't strike me as especially new ground. | TaupeRanger wrote: | "Machines better at exerting precise force on an object than | humans using only their bodies" | djrogers wrote: | Curling without brooms isn't curling. That's like saying a robot | beat Tom Brady at QB, but there were no defenders trying to sack | it. | snarf21 wrote: | This is nonsense. Sure the robot is better at making consistently | the same strength throws. This ignores brushing and making throws | that depend on brushing. Watch the men's Canadian Championships | this weekend (Brier) or the womens' that finished last weekend | (Scotties). Watch them curl a stone 8 feet around others with | brushing. This is like saying they can make a robot that hits | 100% of fairways in golf. That doesn't make it better at golf | than the top players. | SamBam wrote: | I agree that the title is very poor. "Robot AI beats world- | class curling competitors at throwing accuracy" would be | better. | | It's still an impressive feat. | EGreg wrote: | Up next | | Jeopardy bot has faster fingers than human competitors | Apes wrote: | Even saying the "AI" beats the curling competitors at | throwing accuracy isn't correct. The AI has access to a | highly precise mechanisms for controlling the power it throws | with. Would the AI actually be any better than the players if | the players had access to a similarly high precision devices | for controlling throwing power that the AI is using? | jvanderbot wrote: | "Humans become better at curling thanks to robotic | assistance" | | They're not foes. They're tools baselined against human | performance. | bisRepetita wrote: | OK, this is not perfect/equal. Does it make it "nonsense"? If | something is not equal or perfect from the get-go is | "nonsense", then I am not sure how we innovate. | | Let's come back here in a few years. Robots may brush. We may | talk about how innovation iterates, regardless of nay-sayer. | rapind wrote: | I would agree with GP that having "beats" in the title when | omitting that a key part of the game (sweeping) wasn't | included kinda makes it nonsense. It's still neat though for | sure. | | Next up "robot beats F1 drivers" (on straightaway). | tgb wrote: | The video seems to show it "beating" the team without | either using brooms, but both still playing a game. I.e. | they all have stones in play at once and therefore there is | theoretically strategy not just accuracy. Am I wrong? I | don't know anything about curling. It seems fair to call | this "beating" - just not fair to call it curling. | rapind wrote: | Technically sure, the robot won 3 out of 4 matches | against world class curlers at something sort of like, | but not really curling. | | The implications from the title is that it beats them at | curling. You certainly wouldn't expect the article to be | about a robot beating world class curlers at chess. | | If sweeping wasn't such an important part of the game | (literally changing shots, which world class curlers | would rely on as part of their throw technique) then the | article would be fine. | bisRepetita wrote: | >It's still neat though for sure. | | Exactly. I've stopped getting riled up about a catchy | misleading headline. Life's too short. The interesting part | is afer that. | [deleted] | notretarded wrote: | Reinforcement learning of linear regression. Great. What next. | Computer machine learns arithmetic mean? | tectec wrote: | No brooms were used so it wasn't a real curling competition. | ape4 wrote: | "Men with Brooms" == curling (or women) | https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0263734/ | jcims wrote: | All the really hard work here would seem to be in the software | and sensor integration. I say that because the hopelessly | specialized hardware kind of dulls the enthusiasm for me. I | _love_ Mark Rober but I had a similar reaction to his spring- | loaded place-kicker machine (wouldn 't really call it a robot). | The fact that a human could actually even get close to that heavy | clunky thing blows my mind. | | It would be cool to try this with Atlas from Boston Dynamics. You | could at least envision how it can get to and from the rink. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-03-02 23:00 UTC)