January 13, 2005
WHAT DO YOU GET WHEN YOU CROSS JAPANESE TECHNOLOGY WITH ENGLISH SOCCER FANS?:
Robot makers say World Cup will be theirs by 2050 (The Scotsman, Jan 10, 2005)
A Japanese consortium of robotics experts has thrown down the gauntlet to future players of the beautiful game by claiming their engineered humans will play mankind off the park within 45 years."By 2050, our aim is to beat the winners of football’s World Cup and we are very confident that we will be able to do that," said Shu Ishiguro, who heads Robot Laboratory in Osaka. "When we have accomplished that, we will have a society in which humans and artificial intelligence are completely in harmony."
Why is it that humans and machines will only be in harmony once the machines are winning? (Wasn't Russia going to be completely in harmony after the Bolshevik Revolution?)
Mr Ishiguro dodges the question of a robot insurrection, a possibility that will not have escaped anyone in the industry after the release of the Will Smith film I, Robot."All these advanced technologies have an element of risk and we can warn of the dangerous aspects of robots in human society," Mr Ishiguro shrugs, "but cars, for example, successfully collaborate with humans and have been safely integrated into society."
Clearly, he hasn't driven in Boston.
Posted by Paul Jaminet at January 13, 2005 12:49 PM
Soccer is a game so bereft of intelligence, originality and verve that the only surprise is that a group of automatons hasn't won the World Cup already.
Posted by: Bart at January 13, 2005 1:48 PMCollaboration? Obviously, this guy never heard of all the Audis (and others) that decided to suddenly accelerate all on their own.
A limited rebellion, perhaps, but they had to start somewhere.
I'm sure we don't want to blame the right feet of all these drivers, do we?
Posted by: jim hamlen at January 13, 2005 2:46 PMMr. Judd;
I thought you'd agree with these guys. Once robots can beat humans at soccer, then they'll probably stop playing. And don't you believe that such a change would lead to world harmony?
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at January 13, 2005 5:39 PMThe 'bots will never be able to hit a curveball.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at January 13, 2005 6:02 PMAOG - How do you know that once the robots have conquered, they won't make us play soccer? After all, it's their game.
Posted by: pj at January 13, 2005 9:17 PM