Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's moving the goalposts (pun intended :)): having a wheeled robot with an enclosed (ball protection!) basketball holder slide around the basketball court and extend the basketball holder up to the rim would certainly allow it to beat humans, but it wouldn't really be "playing basketball". We engage in sports because they are fun and explore the limits of our physical and mental abilities (or well, go above our li…
but thats the same as in Chess, Go or even StarCraft: the AI is absolutly impossible to beat for human players unless it has explicit flaws built-in. The general point I want to make is that it doesn't make sense trying to compare humans with AI (and somewhat soon) robots, because the will outperform everyone. Handycapping them is not a solution either. The "amazing versatility" of humans also will not persist for to…
I'll try to make the same point land a bit harder:
Robots will not compete any time 'somewhat soon' in many/most physical tasks, because their energy storage capability, motor efficiency, strength to weight ratio, and many other mechanical and sensing properties are not good at all compared with humans and other animals, and can't be fixed by software. Everyday intuition underestimates how large this gap is.
Brains are only part of the requirement for competence in the real world.