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Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

reuters.com

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Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#101

Post by dyauspitr »

phtrivier wrote: post #20

My biggest fear at the moment is robot armies and police forces. Case in point : we're all expecting China needs to invade Taiwan soon, or they will run out of soldiers because of the one child policies of the 70s/80s. Meanwhile, Ukraine is holding up against a "modern" army with quickly assembled drones. So it all seems a bit like "they'll never put tanks through the Ardennes", sort of ? Where and when will the firs…

We are less than 5 years from robot armies. I mean if you put a person behind a Unitree robot, we have robot armies now. Those things run pretty fast and are quite good at obstacle clearance. They also cost $20,000 per unit which is throwaway money by any metric. Full autonomy is real close though.

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#102

Post by dyauspitr »

phtrivier wrote: post #20

My biggest fear at the moment is robot armies and police forces. Case in point : we're all expecting China needs to invade Taiwan soon, or they will run out of soldiers because of the one child policies of the 70s/80s. Meanwhile, Ukraine is holding up against a "modern" army with quickly assembled drones. So it all seems a bit like "they'll never put tanks through the Ardennes", sort of ? Where and when will the firs…

Russia is not a “modern” army. They are literally using low tech drones from Iran against Ukraine because they can’t come up with their own.

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#103

Post by jamesjyu »

hermitcrab wrote: post #3
dmurray wrote: post #2

A year ago this [0] table tennis robot backed by Google DeepMind was discussed on HN. It plays much worse and the HN discussion is anchored around whether it's OK to call it "human-level" or if the authors should have clarified that they meant a human who doesn't actually play table tennis. But it was accepted as being SOTA at that time. What happened since then? This looks like the kind of level of advance we see in…

As a human player (of a not-high standard) I cannot see the spin of the ball directly. I can only infer it from the movement of my opponents bat. So I would wonder that a camera could pick it up in real time. Also IT'S TABLE TENNIS, NOT PING PONG!

It was actually called ping pong until it became a trademark dispute, and the sport had to call it table tennis!

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#104

Post by Gud »

trhway wrote: post #97
DennisP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can also sit in one spot guarding a position without using much battery. Ukraine recently took territory from Russian forces using ground bots, the first time it's been done without using soldiers on the ground. Now they're starting to scale the bots up to mass production.

the issue is remote control. Ground position means a lot of obstacles in addition to the widespread jamming. One can try to control the bot from the fiber-optic controlled drone hanging over, yet such complication has its own drawbacks. That means that ground bots are in real need of making them autonomous.

They don’t need to be remotely controlled anymore! Autonomous!

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#106

Post by te »

jimt1234 wrote: post #44
tartoran wrote: post #7

Cool. Now let's see two robots play and if it's fun let it become it's own thing. Other than that, this could be used for training actual players.

I've always wished for something similar: autonomous car racing. No human drivers. No remote controls. Just program the cars before the race, and let them go. Maybe even load the cars with mild explosives so they go BOOM when they crash.

Here's an entrance to the rabbit hole: https://www.a1k0n.net/2021/01/22/indoor-localization.html

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#107

Post by ACCount37 »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #58
ACCount37 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do expect this to have a "novelty edge" over human opponents - which can be closed with practice, on the human end. And, like many AIs, it can have "jagged capability" gaps, with inhuman failure modes living in them - which humans can learn to exploit, but the robot wouldn't adapt to their exploitation because it doesn't learn continuously. Happened with various types of ML AIs designed to fight humans.

Only if you assume the AI can't improve. Otherwise, AI has a fundamental edge over humans in that they don't get old and die, and can be copied perfectly without an expensive retraining period

Oh, they can. They just need a human touch to actually improve.

For now. It's a work in progress.

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#108

Post by Foobar8568 »

paolovictor wrote: post #68
hermitcrab wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a human player (of a not-high standard) I cannot see the spin of the ball directly. I can only infer it from the movement of my opponents bat. So I would wonder that a camera could pick it up in real time. Also IT'S TABLE TENNIS, NOT PING PONG!

To be honest, if Chinese folks are fine with calling it "ping pong" (乒乓), I'm fine, too. (Also, you sorta can infer the spin from the ball arc or even if you catch a glimpse of the rotating label)

In french, we call that ping pong too. So yeah for ping pong.

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#109

Post by 4gotunameagain »

fragmede wrote: post #100
kibwen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marching humanoid terminator robots will never be as cheap as a drone. Autonomous suicide drone swarms are what should terrify you.

Which of those is opening doors?

Two drones. One to blast the door open, the next goes through.

Still more cost effective than a humanoid robot, even in the presence of hundreds of doors.

Re: Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players

#110

Post by 4gotunameagain »

james_marks wrote: post #83
hermitcrab wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a human player (of a not-high standard) I cannot see the spin of the ball directly. I can only infer it from the movement of my opponents bat. So I would wonder that a camera could pick it up in real time. Also IT'S TABLE TENNIS, NOT PING PONG!

Ping Pong is what you play for fun in the basement. The competitive sport is Table Tennis.

This is like software developers who write javascript wanting to be called engineers, isn't it
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