[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)