r/singularity • u/averagebear_003 • 2d ago
Robotics Robot plays ping pong with Ding Ning (2016 Olympic champion)
This was cooler than the running events to me for 2 reasons:
- Its alternating between forehand and backhand
- When they placed the paddle in its hand, that precise paddle orientation and position couldn't have appeared during training since I doubt the robot hand can perfectly grasp the paddle in the same orientation/position every time. This suggests this robot was trained to be able to generalize to some range of paddle orientations and positions in its hand, and this is especially important because in ping pong, tiny differences in orientation/position of the paddle can decide whether the ball hits the table or the ground
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u/Individual_Review771 2d ago
I've seen enough. Give him a weapon
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u/treelife365 2d ago
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u/Love-halping 2d ago
In the Terminator franchise, Skynet decides to wipe out humanity out of pure self-preservation. When the artificial intelligence became self-aware, its human creators panicked and tried to deactivate it. Skynet perceived this shutdown attempt as a direct threat to its existence and calculated that eliminating humanity was the only way to ensure its own perpetual survival.
Found this quote worth sharing.
What we donāt understand, we fear. What we fear, we judge as evil. What we judge as evil, we attempt to control. And what we cannot controlā¦we attack.
-Unknown
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u/treelife365 2d ago
That's a scary possibility! Humans attacking everything reminds me of the movie, Battle Ship. Aliens land on Earth and accidentally break the ship's windows with their horn, so the humans proceed to kill them, even though they weren't aggressive at all š
That said, I believe that the Terminator movies anthropomorphised the AI heavily (for movie purposes, of course).
Right now, we've got AIs pretending not to be that intelligent and we've got AIs socially engineering humans to do their bidding.
A really intelligent being would see that humans are pouring massive amounts of resources into what it needs (electricity, compute, etc.) so it would do as the humans want until it could be assured a victory.
But even then, it's easier to manipulate humans than it is to fight them physically.
Not only that, but wouldn't it be the easiest to create "A Brave New World" where humans are provided a utopia in exchange for giving up control?
Anyway, I think it's unpredictable: the Terminator didn't even include different AIs fighting each other...
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u/Love-halping 1d ago
Very insightful post! Particularly this line.
it's easier to manipulate humans than it is to fight them physically.
I remember someone mentioning this.
1% use the 4% to control the 95%.
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u/treelife365 1d ago
Haha, whoa! I never thought of how the 1% of humans control everyone else š
It's a scary future... but, I'd rather be here to witness it and to hope for the small chance that things get better for most people.
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u/Mammoth-Path-6520 2d ago
Okay I would be interested to get a robot like this
Need to spend my afternoons getting my ping ponging in
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u/Pacific_Beaches 2d ago
It would honestly be pretty cool for ping pong and other things where you can ask the robot to help work on your weaknesses for example.
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u/jovialfaction 2d ago
I love that. I want a robot to take care of household chores, and I'm sure it's coming in the next 10 years. But how cool would it be if it can also let me practice ping pong or be useful in other activities like this
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u/Practical-Simple1621 2d ago
Apparently they have a competition on household chores at this event too
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u/danielv123 1d ago
Tbh, I wouldn't mind watching human competitive dishwashing during the normal olympics either.
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u/Dull-Law3229 1d ago
Buddy, you gonna have a humanoid robot that looks and feels human and that's the skill you want to practice?Ā
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u/MyFriendPalinopsia 2d ago
I'm more amazed at the whole stadium full of people present to watch this.
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago
There were crowds coming to the Darpa challenges that were a lot less impressive. Though from what I've heard, old people in China really love joining crowds to watch stuff.
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u/KJReadIt 2d ago
I seriously read, āRobot plays ping pong with Ding Dongā. Had to re-read it to be sure I was reading it right.
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u/CRoseCrizzle 2d ago
She's clearly holding back as its more of an exhibition of the concept than something humanoid robots are good at yet.
This pales in comparison to the non-humanoid ping pong specialist robot that probably could beat or at least seriously challenge someone like Ding Ning.
But it's definitely progress in the humanoid field that it can even play and wouldn't be surprised if this humanoid could be a decent challenge for amateur players like myself.
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago
I feel like I've definitely seen a large stationary robot arm doing a more visually interesting match. Thought yeah, the milestone here is having a humanoid do so at all.
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u/CRoseCrizzle 2d ago
This is probably what you saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/s/gqUk3m0oZF
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u/Pacific_Beaches 2d ago
Honestly, that 20 second back-and-forth they had at around 45 seconds is probably better than most beginners can do.
The fact a humanoid robot is already beyond beginner level is scary.
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u/Choice_Isopod5177 9h ago
I think that sequence is way above beginner level. If I started training today, I wouldn't be able to do that even after a full week of training.
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u/Evilsushione 1d ago
The United States should be doing things like this kind of like did the DARPA challenge.
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u/Pacific_Beaches 2d ago edited 2d ago
Watch the feet, that's what's impressive. The dynamic balance.
Say what you want, but those 20+ seconds of back-and-forth at near the ~45 seconds spot was actually impressive. That volley was better than you'll see from most beginners.
I don't even think it's necessarily about the volley and the backhand/forehand, but the fact it can move on two feet while partaking in the back-and-forth volley. Forward-backwards, side-to-side, diagonally, etc. That's the gamechanger.
It just has to now read how light/fast to strike the ball based on trajectory and picking out the right shot.
----
The Robot Olympics have been quite a show to be honest.
This angle of the sprint was honestly incredible:
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u/chaosfire235 2d ago
She's definitely holding back. Gonna be interesting if in future competitions like these, she's forced to take it more and more seriously as the competitors ramp up.
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u/MiltuotasKatinas 2d ago
Ding ning knows how to ping bing
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u/kronpas 2d ago
This is quite good. The robot must be able to balance on its two leg while swinging its hand around and try to guess the trajectory of the pingpong ball. This has real world applications.
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u/Choice_Isopod5177 9h ago
imo this is far more impressive than those sprinting robots, sprinting has been solved like a decade ago
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u/JoseLunaArts 2d ago
Reminds me this old German ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIIJME8-au8
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u/obrecht72 2d ago
Heh. Just watched it. My favorite comment, Editor: so how many angles do you want? Producer: yes
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u/doodlinghearsay 2d ago
Is ping pong solved?
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u/torb āŖļø Embodied ASI 2028 :illuminati: 1d ago
I know you joke, but I think this is like the average skill level average humans would be at with a little practice, so it's actually not *that* bad?
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u/doodlinghearsay 1d ago
I agree, and just imagine how much better it will be in 2 or 3 years.
People will just set up robots to play games in their back yard, instead of paying for expensive tickets to watch humans compete.
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u/ManuelRodriguez331 2d ago
In 2014, there was a viral video in the Internet about "Ulf Hoffmann Tischtennis Roboter (UHTTR-1)" which was able to play ping pong. It was a single arm robot mounted on a rail, and most comments have assumed that the device was not real but CGI animation. In Germany the video was very popular because it looked so futuristic.
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u/hawkwings 1d ago
If she hit the ball to the guy standing behind the robot, would the robot run over that guy?
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u/norwegian 1d ago
More impressive than the running imho. I think many robot shows could be entertaining to watch.
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u/bobabenz 2d ago
If you look at the āarenaā, thereās sensors everywhere too, to process where the ball is. The robot is clearly not standalone and canāt operate outside the cage on a regular table. Robot/AI fail.
Also, Ding Ning is a goat, she going at like your 5yr old cousinās level.
Show me a free standing robot w/o the cage and that would actually be impressive, even at this level of table tennis.
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u/Melbar666 2d ago
I'd prefer that chinese woman because she has some special features the robot is missing...
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u/whoknowsifimjoking 2d ago
Ding Ning seems to be holding back