China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match
The pitch wasn't the only artificial element on display at a football match on Saturday. Four teams of humanoid robots took each other on in Beijing, in games of three-a-side powered by artificial intelligence.
While the modern game has faced accusations of becoming near-robotic in its obsession with tactical perfection, the games in China showed that AI won't be taking Kylian Mbappé's job just yet.
Footage of the humanoid kickabout showed the robots struggling to kick the ball or stay upright, performing pratfalls that would have earned their flesh-and-blood counterparts a yellow card for diving. At least two robots were stretchered off after failing to regain their feet after going to ground.
Cheng Hao, founder and CEO of Booster Robotics, the company that supplied the robot players, said sports competitions offered the ideal testing ground for humanoid robots. He said humans could play robots in the future, although judging by Saturday's evidence the humanoids have some way to go before they can hold their own on a football pitch.
Cheng said: 'In the future, we may arrange for robots to play football with humans. That means we must ensure the robots are completely safe.'
The competition was fought between university teams, which adapted the robots with their own algorithms. In the final match, Tsinghua University's THU Robotics defeated the China Agricultural University's Mountain Sea team with a score of 5–3 to win the championship.
One Tsinghua supporter celebrated their victory while also praising the competition. 'They [THU] did really well,' he said. 'But the Mountain Sea team was also impressive. They brought a lot of surprises.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Microsoft probing if Chinese hackers learned SharePoint flaws through alert, Bloomberg News reports
July 25 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab is investigating whether a leak from its early alert system for cybersecurity companies allowed Chinese hackers to exploit flaws in its SharePoint service before they were patched, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. A security patch Microsoft released this month failed to fully fix a critical flaw in the U.S. tech giant's SharePoint server software, opening the door to a sweeping global cyber espionage effort. In a blog post on Tuesday, Microsoft said two allegedly Chinese hacking groups, dubbed "Linen Typhoon" and "Violet Typhoon," were exploiting the weaknesses, along with a third, also based in China. The tech giant is probing if the program led to the widespread exploitation of vulnerabilities in its SharePoint software globally over the past several days, the report said. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Newcastle's Alexander Isak offered £600,000-a-week tax-free deal by Al-Hilal
Alexander Isak has been offered a staggering £600,000-a-week tax-free deal by Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia with further lucrative bonuses on top. The Newcastle striker is open to leaving St James' Park and Liverpool, who are long-term admirers, are keeping an eye on the situation. Isak has not travelled to Asia with his Newcastle teammates for the club's pre-season tour, officially because of a minor muscle injury, and is assessing his options. They include Al-Hilal, who reached the Club World Cup quarter-finals, losing to Fluminense, and want to make a grand statement by signing Isak – one of the most coveted players on the market. Al-Hilal, who are managed by Simone Inzaghi, are prepared to sweeten the package for the striker with bonuses if he were to win the league and/or the Asian Champions League and top the scoring charts. Isak has been unsettled by the transfer talk and he did not play for Newcastle in the friendly at Celtic last Saturday. The club have no desire to sell him and the fans would surely take the dimmest of views of their Saudi owners if they were to let him go to Al-Hilal. Like Newcastle, Al‑Hilal are owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. Liverpool would not be able to match the personal terms that Al‑Hilal have proposed and it is unclear whether they would be able to afford the fee; Isak is valued at about £120m. Liverpool have signed another striker – Hugo Ekitiké, for £79m from Eintracht Frankfurt – and spent heavily in other areas, most notably the £116m package for the midfielder Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen. Their other big deals have been for Milos Kerkez (£40m from Bournemouth), Jeremie Frimpong (£29.5m, Leverkusen) and Giorgi Mamardashvili (£25m, Valencia). Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion When sales are factored in, chiefly those of Jarell Quansah (£30m to Leverkusen), Caoimhín Kelleher (£12.5m to Brentford) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (£10m to Real Madrid), Liverpool's net transfer spend stands at £235.5m. It is possible they could raise further funds by selling Darwin Núñez, Harvey Elliott and even Luis Díaz, although they have maintained the Colombian is not for sale. Isak is contracted to Newcastle until 2028.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
The fun has gone for frazzled India as Shubman Gill's passivity leaves teammates drifting
For 22 overs on the third morning India toiled in the field, rotating through their bowling options, none of them working. Well, all but one of their bowling options: Washington Sundar remained unused, occasionally performing solo warm‑up exercises in the outfield only to be left there to cool down again. But then the right‑armer is primarily known for his ability to generate drift, and drifting was the one thing India were doing pretty effectively already. Finally, he got his chance. By then England's innings was 68 overs old and India's advantage had been whittled from 358 to only 53. In his three overs before lunch, with a tired ball, Washington brought some energy and some hope. Not with immediate reward, but enough to bring the slightest hint of a skip to his teammates' trudge from the field. He returned after lunch to dismiss Ollie Pope and Harry Brook, but in doing so it was hard to know if he was helping India solve their problems, or simply highlighting them. On Thursday they had mystifyingly chosen to give their startlingly pedestrian debutant Anshul Kamboj the new ball over Mohammed Siraj – who was later to add injury to insult – and sidelining for so long the bowler who was to prove their most dangerous was another indication of some seriously ditsy decision-making. And when sheer bad luck seems so intent on bringing a team to its knees, it is best not to give it a helping hand. Shubman Gill was named India's new captain in May, the team reeling from the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. One imagines he travelled to England for his debut series in the role hoping to lead a new-look team through a tour that would still be spoken about years from now. And so it might, though as it seems at this point, towards the end of the fourth Test, most likely as actors talk of Macbeth – very cautiously, at the risk of triggering bad memories and ominous superstitions. Four lost tosses. A string of injuries, including a vice‑captain who damaged a hand in one game and a foot in the next. One convincing win, two narrow defeats. And then this. It is not hard to identify the moment for which England will remember this day: it will for sure involve Joe Root, either proudly waving his bat on completing his century, or meekly raising a hand to acknowledge the fans as he hurtled up the ladder of all-time Test run-scorers. But for India there are plenty of choices, each grimmer than the last. It may be the one, just after they took the second new ball, when Sai Sudharsan returned from a brief trip to the dressing-room, ran up to Gill, leaned into his ear to deliver a message – and as he did so Jasprit Bumrah, their premier bowler, left the field for what turned out to be a full half-hour. Or the one soon after Bumrah returned, when Siraj started limping in the middle of an over and, having completed it, was also forced off. Or when Bumrah finally felt ready to bowl again, handed his hat to the umpire, was told that because of his time away he wasn't allowed to, and put his hat back on. So many plans, and each of them, one after the other, shredded. So perhaps Gill had enough to think about, without also shouldering the responsibility of rousing and inspiring a tiring and increasingly dispirited team. But watching him closely in the field, the most obvious thing is the complete lack of obvious things. Occasionally, perhaps, he will gently shift a teammate's position, but apart from the odd weary handclap he says little and does less. Maybe the huddles with which India start each session are where he comes alive, but there is little there for the public to see – and repeatedly the field placings when there was a new batter at the crease, and with them an opportunity to create some pressure, seemed as passive as the captain himself. Sign up to The Spin Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers' thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week's action after newsletter promotion It is too soon, of course, to write off the 25-year-old, and having banked 619 runs in the series it can hardly be considered a failure, but inevitably when a captain does so little to answer the questions the game throws at him he will be subject of a few himself. Certainly, if you observe the players, their behaviour on their own and around others, then KL Rahul, who wears the No 1 on his back and also, it seems, in his heart, is the one who looks to be leading. The day did not in the end develop into the full-blown crisis that was at one stage threatened. Most important, whatever ailed Bumrah and Siraj, both recovered to bowl in the final session, and take a wicket apiece in doing so. But the best that could be said of it is that it might have been worse. For England, the sun shone. For India, the fun's gone.
