Ping-pong robot beats top-level human players • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by boothby » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 5:45 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #85

SecretDreams wrote: post #79

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. If money or economics were relevant in these decisions, most wars would probably not play out in the first place. Tesla probably wouldn't be worth 1.2T. And we certainly wouldn't see AI buildouts happening at their current rates. Economics and costs only matter for normal humans, small…

It matters quite a bit. If your drone costs $1000, you can build a thousand times more of them than if a drone costs $1M. As the saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own. This is a lesson the US has yet to learn, and its military drones are really expensive. Ukraine learned it by necessity, and now it's building millions of drones annually.

On the other hand, if Musk really flips his lid, he's one OTA away from a network of ground-delivered lithium bombs. The fear of humanoid bots is their banality: if a government or private company has a reason to build them, then the world is full of hardware with terrifying capability and questionable security.

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

#112

Post by cik » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 5:54 AM UTC

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…

> If war is mostly played out from a disrance

I left a company because they pivoted to exactly this. There are so many companies in this space today, testing what they call "physical AI autonomy" today, and we have to recognize that this is our today.

There are entire marketplace options for buying the pretrained, supported, private models, or the datasets if you have your own goals. If you're interested purely in ditzing around with GPS denied, or communications lost, you can do that today.

I watched a demo video, in March where a company was sharing their remote instructed (note, not controlled) multiple format (spider, dog) robot swarm. The company claimed to be 35km away from where the drones dropped off the payloads, and the mission was engaged. Lightweight explosives were used to toss off a car.

This is our present.

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

#113

Post by alexose » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

retrochameleon wrote: post #21

I'll be impressed when it's a humanoid robot that has to contend with similar kinematic limitations as a human player.

Yeah, the dang thing can reach all the way to the net while standing three feet behind the table

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

#114

Post by andyjohnson0 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #85

SecretDreams wrote: post #79

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. If money or economics were relevant in these decisions, most wars would probably not play out in the first place. Tesla probably wouldn't be worth 1.2T. And we certainly wouldn't see AI buildouts happening at their current rates. Economics and costs only matter for normal humans, small…

It matters quite a bit. If your drone costs $1000, you can build a thousand times more of them than if a drone costs $1M. As the saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own. This is a lesson the US has yet to learn, and its military drones are really expensive. Ukraine learned it by necessity, and now it's building millions of drones annually.

I think what your parent commenter means is that, if the application is warlike or nefarious, them the money will be found. If, on the other hand, it is humanitarian, then every penny will be counted.

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

#115

Post by perlgeek » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:22 AM UTC

> In matches detailed in the study, Ace in April 2025 won three out of five versus elite players and lost two matches against professional players, the top skill level in the sport. Sony AI said that since then Ace beat professional players in December 2025 and last month.

What exactly is an "elite" player, if it's not a professional?

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

#116

Post by NitpickLawyer » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:28 AM UTC

throwatdem12311 wrote: post #87

I don’t care about robots being better than humans at human achievement. Would anyone ever watch Clankers play hockey against eachother at a Clanker Olympics? The idea is absurd, I want to see humans competing because they are humans not just because they are good.

Plenty of people watch TCEC (Top Chess Engine Championship) livestreams. Even more watch a selection of games curated by professional analysts. Some of the games are really interesting and surface novel stuff.

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

#117

Post by arjunthazhath » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:30 AM UTC

Glad to see new kind of robots other than those cliche dog like ones....that does nothing but walk. In india its pretty much seen in every public event as a marketing gimmick.

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

#118

Post by fragmede » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:46 AM UTC

4gotunameagain wrote: post #109

fragmede wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That breaks the building. If you want to destroy the whole thing, conventional weapons has that covered. Drones can't get through nets and doors. Though, have you considered packs of robot dogs with machine guns and one arm/hand? Cheaper than a fully bipedal humanoid robot.

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

#119

Post by theshrike79 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:56 AM UTC

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…

Remote controlled autonomous robots/drones can also be used for, say, elder care.

A nurse can log in to a HelperBot remotely, check up on the client, tidy up the house and maybe even give medication. Instead of having to drive around between clients, losing maybe hours a day just on transit, one person can manage more people per day.

...but the same system can be modified for KillerBot easily like we know from EVERY SCI-FI BOOK EVER.

We live in interesting times.

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

#120

Post by fc417fc802 » Thu, Apr 23, 2026, 6:57 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #118

4gotunameagain wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That breaks the building. If you want to destroy the whole thing, conventional weapons has that covered. Drones can't get through nets and doors. Though, have you considered packs of robot dogs with machine guns and one arm/hand? Cheaper than a fully bipedal humanoid robot.

> have you considered packs of robot dogs with machine guns

I don't have it to hand but already a few years ago a defense contractor had attached quite a heavy rifle on some sort of articulable mount to the top of something that looked exactly like Boston Dynamic's Spot. I'm not sure how much ammo it was capable of carrying or what it's range was but it's definitely a concerning development. I think I might become an enthusiastic custom anti-materiel rifle collector in the near future.