ROBOT SOCCER...WHAT?

[thomasallencummins]

Yes. Robot Soccer. I find it hard to believe myself but it's real. There's even a web site www.robocup.org/
www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Robot-Soccer-Players-Learn-the-Game/story.xhtml?story_id=02000233PF34

"RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and related field. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined."

The idea of watching a field of robots playing soccer just might be the gimmick I need to get interested in the sport at last.......nah!
But robots are cool! ;D

[ram]

Robots are cool indeed. I will definitely be rooting for the robot soccer team. Just imagine how humiliating it will be for the human players if and when the robots actually score a goal on them. Hee hee! That will be a priceless. A Mastercard moment.

But 2050? Sheesh, I'll be an old geezer by then, assuming I can even make it that far. Unless in the intervening years, science will have found the way to stop the aging process, thus rendering human beings practically immortal. Um, on second thought, that's a disturbing scenario.

Or maybe technology will have advanced to the point where I could "download" my mind into some new shell before my mortal human body gives out. Then I could attend that robot soccer game...as a robot myself! Either that or I'll just be a head in a hi-tech jar. Hmmm, wait a minute...

[thomasallencummins]

I would pay good money to watch robot players beat human ones. Just so long as the humans aren't patronizing the robots because they are cool and they think the contest is unfair. Of course development of robotics will have to have much more progress before a human player is "outwitted" by a clunky, lumbering machine that must take very careful and deliberate steps in order to keep it's feet. ;D