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From: goldfain@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Success of AI
Message-ID: <8300007@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Sun, 25-Oct-87 22:31:00 EST
Article-I.D.: osiris.8300007
Posted: Sun Oct 25 22:31:00 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Oct-87 20:47:54 EST
References: <1922@gryphon.CTS.COM>
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Nf-From: osiris.cso.uiuc.edu!goldfain    Oct 25 21:31:00 1987


> tsmith@gryphon.CTS.COM writes
> Now here's the interesting point. If you were to come to me and say--
> "Smith, you have a year to develop an automaton that will play some
> kind of major sport at a championship level, competing against humans.
> Money is no object, and you can have access to all the world's
> experts in AI and robotics, but you must design a robot that plays
> championship X in a year's time.  What is X?" I would say, without a
> moment's hesistation, "tennis".
>
> Why? Of all the sports, tennis is the most bounded. It is played within
> a very restricted area (unlike golf or even baseball), it is a
> one-against-one sport (unlike football or soccer), the playing surfaces
> (aside from Wimbledon) are the truest of all the major sports, and it
> is indubitably the most boring of all the sports to watch (if not to
> play). A perfect candidate for automation.
> ----------------

Hmmm, by  your own criterion,  I would prefer  table tennis, or   to make life
really easy, bowling.  I had heard that a  table-tennis playing robot has been
developed that is really quite good.  Bowling is really way too simple.
 
(If  what I have  heard is correct,  othello would  also   be  a good choice -
computers  have already been  claimed by some  to  outperform humans here, but
it's not a major sport.)