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From: josh@topaz.rutgers.edu (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: The Success of AI
Message-ID: <15986@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Mon, 26-Oct-87 21:06:56 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.15986
Posted: Mon Oct 26 21:06:56 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Oct-87 06:39:29 EST
References: <1922@gryphon.CTS.COM> <8300007@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 31

> 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".

Goldfain says bowling, which is a very good choice, being in a
completely artificial environment.  It might have (with ping-pong)
the problem of not "really being a sport".  If we define "major sport"
as something done outside in real time against competition and often
televised on major networks, I would have to go with the 50 yard dash.
If we allow any olympic event, offhand sharpshooting looks promising,
javelin throwing looks easy, shot put looks trivial.

In fact, the more I think about it, tennis is probably one of the 
*hardest* sports to implement.  I imagine a team of football-playing
robots:  they look something like tanks...

The point in all this is obviously that in the history of replacing
human effort with mechanical effort, brute force was the first success
story. 
	*	*	*	*

"The Yankees pitcher steps to the mound.  It is a Cincinnati Milacron
G97A22013 just brought up from the minors.  Here's the pitch!  Holy
cow!  A 957 mph fastball on the inside corner for strike one! ..."

--JoSH