Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#61

Post by travisjungroth » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:05 PM UTC

chefandy wrote: post #55

JadeNB wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the process of creating something is meaningful, even commercially. That's true, but why does it mean that the answer to the more or less objective question "will AI actually be better than humans at sequencing these kinds of problems?" (As stated it's not really objective, but one could easily come up with metrics like, say, total time to a correct solution, or time spent observing the route or other climbers, or…

Sure, they may well be quantitatively better. If you were to create metrics to measure the number of mistakes or weird spots or overly annoying things, it's quite possible that the output from the algorithm could score better than human output, and the throughput would obviously be incomparable. But, whether or not something is qualitatively better is far more subjective-- it's influenced by our culture, our experien…

I think your arguments against AI being better at creating routes reduce to:

1. You don’t like what that would mean about the destiny for humanity.

2. A human making it makes it inherently better.

3. If it’s lower quality, it’s lower quality.

I get why this would lead to strong beliefs. But these arguments aren’t very convincing.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#62

Post by et-al » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:09 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #56

hangonhn wrote: post #28

This is really cool from a technology point of view but the main attraction of climbing for me is figuring out how to "solve" the climb. Trying to solve a crux with a buddy is half of the fun for me.

Right, but for people in their first couple of years of climbing, it can be really helpful to try to solve it, then see what the AI coach says, examine the diff, and thereby improve your solving and climbing skills. I have definitely discovered in my life that I learn probably 10x faster in situations where I can try something, and then immediately compare it with an expert solution. Rather than just trying and tryin…

With bouldering, the set of moves is fairly limited and what actually prevents someone from pulling harder comes down to flexibility, core strength, and contact strength.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#63

Post by chefandy » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:09 PM UTC

JadeNB wrote: post #57

chefandy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they may well be quantitatively better. If you were to create metrics to measure the number of mistakes or weird spots or overly annoying things, it's quite possible that the output from the algorithm could score better than human output, and the throughput would obviously be incomparable. But, whether or not something is qualitatively better is far more subjective-- it's influenced by our culture, our experien…

Right, those are important considerations, but I don't think that they're the same consideration. If you ask whether a celebrity chef is better at cooking a certain dish than I am, then the answer (no matter the dish, for I'm not much of a chef) is almost certainly "yes." If I answered instead no, that the provenance of a dish matters, that the celebrity-chef culture is bad for fine dining, and that my wife would rat…

Well, I think that celebrity vs husband is not a good analog for human vs generated. I also think that in this case, origin has broader connotations than provenance, in that it includes context. What if the celebrity chef was your wife's brother? What if you had a degenerative neurological disease? What if it was the dish you cooked for her on your second date? Anything can seem very cut and dried if you impose artificial restrictions and examine it in a vacuum. And, because you can't easily define and quantify things like context, the engineering and tech worlds tend disregard them because they don't really factor into the engineering equation... and that's why designers exist.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#64

Post by alexcp_ » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:10 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #47

alexcp_ wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, holds will evolve as they get used and more polished, even indoors. Climbing a Moonboard with a new set of holds is quite different than climbing on one with older more polished holds, even if it's the exact same problem and the same holds. It's an interesting project and it could be fun to watch, but it's completely useless.

Couldn't you reverse-reason about that? To me, the customer here would be climbing gyms, offering a service to climbers. 1. Set up camera on routes 2. Record all climbs 3. Reason through hold details 4. Generate potential movements 5. Show climbs vs ghost movements 6. Feedback to tune model 3 being accomplished by reasoning "if a movement should be possible using the identified hold, but no one successfully does it,…

But what is the point? Finding the optimal movements that are needed to complete a climb is not useful if you are not strong enough to execute it.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#65

Post by chefandy » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:12 PM UTC

travisjungroth wrote: post #61

chefandy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, they may well be quantitatively better. If you were to create metrics to measure the number of mistakes or weird spots or overly annoying things, it's quite possible that the output from the algorithm could score better than human output, and the throughput would obviously be incomparable. But, whether or not something is qualitatively better is far more subjective-- it's influenced by our culture, our experien…

I think your arguments against AI being better at creating routes reduce to: 1. You don’t like what that would mean about the destiny for humanity. 2. A human making it makes it inherently better. 3. If it’s lower quality, it’s lower quality. I get why this would lead to strong beliefs. But these arguments aren’t very convincing .

I think you probably need to re-read what I wrote. I'm not against AI at all-- I use it all the time. I just don't think it's going to be qualitatively better than human creative output because how something was made matters to people. I also think the tech world thinks they're a lot better at judging creative output than they are.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#66

Post by ethbr1 » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:13 PM UTC

hirako2000 wrote: post #48

ethbr1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-level details about how you tackled the various sub-problems would be useful. I assume, at minimum, there's: - Segmentation of moving elements - 3d reconstruction from 2d video - Reverse kinematics - Identification of holds - Search for potential climbing path - Generation of kinematics for path

Likely looking to see a 100k emails list before really thinking about all these problems to solve and well. Worst case able to build this, scenario, author builds something else entirely.

Afaict, author already built a proof of concept.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#67

Post by ethbr1 » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:19 PM UTC

alexcp_ wrote: post #64

ethbr1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you reverse-reason about that? To me, the customer here would be climbing gyms, offering a service to climbers. 1. Set up camera on routes 2. Record all climbs 3. Reason through hold details 4. Generate potential movements 5. Show climbs vs ghost movements 6. Feedback to tune model 3 being accomplished by reasoning "if a movement should be possible using the identified hold, but no one successfully does it,…

But what is the point? Finding the optimal movements that are needed to complete a climb is not useful if you are not strong enough to execute it.

The point in this thread seemed to be "real world holds have different properties, and that defines possible approaches to holds."

To which I pointed out that, with enough data, you could reason backwards to figure out their properties.

Assuming that's solved, if the question is "What is the point?" then I'd answer the same point as golf swing analysis -- structured comparison feedback for continual improvement.

"Have you thought about trying X move at Y point?" or "You're trying X move at Y point, but here's how you differ from someone successfully doing it" both seem useful feedback.

And essentially what's manually generated now, from someone watching and then providing feedback.

With regards to strength, hell, if you wanted to get fancy you could also deduce a specific user's strength, comparing their moves against others' moves on the same features.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#68

Post by chefandy » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:20 PM UTC

petsfed wrote: post #60

chefandy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if AI might actually be better than humans at sequencing these kinds of problems Probably a deeply unpopular take here, but without knowing anything about climbing routes, I'm gonna say no . I'm not saying that they won't have excellent quality output that might even solve problems that human output can't, but the process of creating something is meaningful, even commercially. Surely this will be useful in…

Well, the tricky bit here is that the route setter, a human, is the one actually solving the problem. So the problem as set is (and must be) a human creation first. This is especially true in outdoor climbing, where the first ascent process might involve the installation of anchor fixtures, or the removal of poorly-secured features for safety. You'd need some pretty wild sensor suites to correctly differentiate betwe…

> You'd need some pretty wild sensor suites to correctly differentiate between a really good hold

Ah, I see.

> The AI just generates potential solutions to the problem once the holds are found/placed

Yeah and I think that's really going to be the sweet spot for generative tools for the forseeable future.

> Its easy enough to shotgun holds up onto the wall based on some imagined sequence, the real skill of route setting is to (as the GP pointed out) figure out what's physically possible and also fun and challenging.

Right right. I have a feeling that making a more convincing substitute is primarily a matter of having less access to data than say, paintings and photography which are certainly not less nuanced than this creative task. But as I said, a lot of people care about how something was made, too. I'll bet that's going to be a much bigger factor, at least in marketing, than many realize in the near future.

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#69

Post by takk309 » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

mordechai9000 wrote: post #53

et-al wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only watched the video, but without taking in account the texture of the holds, the grading aspect would be limited. One also learns to just recalibrate according to regions. E.g. climbing 11d at one gym, versus 12a at another.

Also, how will the AI know when it is appropriate to inflate the grade to make the climbing seem harder, and when it is appropriate to sandbag so I can pretend a route is easier for me than it actually is?

Easy, it'll just grade everything 5.9+!

Re: Show HN: AI climbing coach – visualize how to climb any route based on your body

#70

Post by ethbr1 » Wed, May 08, 2024, 8:26 PM UTC

petsfed wrote: post #60

chefandy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if AI might actually be better than humans at sequencing these kinds of problems Probably a deeply unpopular take here, but without knowing anything about climbing routes, I'm gonna say no . I'm not saying that they won't have excellent quality output that might even solve problems that human output can't, but the process of creating something is meaningful, even commercially. Surely this will be useful in…

Well, the tricky bit here is that the route setter, a human, is the one actually solving the problem. So the problem as set is (and must be) a human creation first. This is especially true in outdoor climbing, where the first ascent process might involve the installation of anchor fixtures, or the removal of poorly-secured features for safety. You'd need some pretty wild sensor suites to correctly differentiate betwe…

> Embedded in your comment is the idea that AI might create boulder problems or routes in climbing gyms, and the human (or eventually robot) just follows that plan in bolting the holds to the wall.

This would follow the exact path image GenAI evolved through.

Step 1: Teach a model to recognize objects from noisy data.

Step 2: Reverse-feed that model random noise and force it to hallucinate that noise back into likely objects.

As there's probably physics simulation at some point in this particular scenario, there'd probably also be step 3 of simulating a climb through the generated path to validate feasibility / specific qualities.

It doesn't sound impossible.