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If all athletes are doping, none of them benefit. I would disagree; the more superhuman the feats, the more people are likely to watch. See, e.g., Cristiano Ro
by trevyn 10y ago
If all athletes are doping, none of them benefit.
I would disagree; the more superhuman the feats, the more people are likely to watch. See, e.g., Cristiano Ronaldo.
- tptacek 10y agoWhat is "superhuman" if not a relative benchmark against our expectations of what humans can accomplish unaided? We watch the Olympics knowing full well a machine could trivially outdo the best athlete at virtually every event.
- smallnamespace 10y agoReally? I'd love to see a team of robots win at, say, soccer or basketball, but I'd bet that is still decades away. Not to mention figure skating, or gymnastics.
- wolf550e 10y agoCome on, you know he meant the stuff that measures "Faster, Higher, Stronger" like running and jumping and throwing. The team sports and sports in which you get points for aesthetics are harder for robots, but I think they can do bobsleigh if not soccer.
- smallnamespace 10y agoAnd exactly which sports are the 'faster, higher, stronger' ones? Let me list some individual, no artistic points sports where I think building a robot that can beat a top human would be highly challenging: - Pole vault - Hurdles - Wrestling - Cycling - build a robot than can actually balance on bike and ride it properly - Tennis - Surfing Not to mention the biggest challenge, which is that every single one of these sports would require a special robot, while humans are true generalists. We are literally decades away from being able to build generalist robots that can outpace humans in the physical world over a range of tasks. Kinematics, balance, and locomotion are all hard problems in robotics, and it doesn't help for us to trivialize them.
- tptacek 10y agoYou're right, but you're making my argument for me. Nobody is interested in seeing a motorcycle beat a bicyclist, or a horse outrun an Olympic sprinter; they're interested in seeing what a human being can do, unaided, pushed to the limits of what a human can do. We already know that we can outperform an unassisted human using technology.
- Joakal 10y agoProgramming is an ongoing feat. You wouldn't take a drug to finish off a project and risk obvious health issues. Why? You're like an artist, as you do more work in future, the better. Olympics is an one-off feat. You may take a drug to finish first despite risking obvious health issues. Why? You could receive money and fame for a lifetime as reward for one-off events.