Robot Wins Table Tennis Against Humans
A robot called Ace, made by the Japanese company Sony, has beaten skilled human players at table tennis. Ace won three out of five games against elite players— people who play at a very high level. The matches followed official rules at a special court in Tokyo. One former Olympic player, Kinjiro Nakamura, watched Ace hit a very fast spin shot and said he thought it was impossible. Scientists published the results in the journal Nature.
Ace works differently from a human player. It has a robotic arm with eight joints and uses several cameras around the table to watch the ball. The cameras can tell how the ball is spinning in just milliseconds— thousandths of a second. Ace practised for about 3,000 hours in computer simulations before playing real people. Sony made sure Ace played fairly and did not use too much speed or power.
This is an important step for AI (artificial intelligence) and robots. Before this, computers played games like chess, but playing a real sport against humans is much harder. Not everyone is impressed, though. One expert said Sony's camera system gives the robot an unfair advantage because humans only have two eyes. Players also said it felt strange to play against a machine with no face and no emotions.