Man versus machine. It’s always the ultimate showdown, and in this case — where one of the world’s best table tennis players, Timo Boll, goes against one of the fastest ping pong machines out there — it makes for an intense match.
While the robots don’t win this time — Boll barely wins by taking advantage of the robotic arm’s limitations — the match is still worth watching. If you stick until the end, you even see Boll going up against multiple KUKA robotic arms — and somehow, he keeps up. Amazing!
The Duel: Timo Boll vs. KUKA Robot [KukaRobotGroup]
Comments
4 responses to “Robots Can’t Beat Us At Ping Pong (Yet)”
So, step by step, if machines take over all human activity, including art and science, what will happen to the organic body and its conditioned-to-work-and-think brain? Surely, will it decay? Is mankind-machines coexistence possible while people are fighting for jobs and resources: competition, nations, and so on? Anyway, beyond ping pong, what is the endeavour in which a robot cannot take part or channel at all suscesfully? Why won’t the future automatons be alive? What is the fundamental difference between a mechanical structure, organic or inorganic, that imitates life and life itself? Is there any, virtual or real? If it said that there is a difference, is it just some kind of authority who defines and differentiates? Perhaps then, someday, will be a powerful automaton the one who will define life, its unique life, truth itself? That is, where does life begin and end? Therefore, where does death too? Along these lines, there is a peculiar book, a preview in http://goo.gl/rfVqw6 Just another suggestion, in order to free-think for a while
Would be interesting to see what the uncut footage really looks like
The ONLY thing I was interested in. It was all kind of misleading.
Soooo many cuts I couldn’t tell what was going on. It was probably cool.
this could be the dawn of a very different kind of robot wars……………………..
Just transplant Forrest Gumps’ brain into the robot and it should be all good – except for the juices.
When the robot was winning I felt really sorry for the guy but when the guy started winning I felt really sorry for the robot. The guy can see what his opponent is doing and get better/exploit their limitations (as he did) but the robot just has to continue doing what it’s doing. And like…It wanted to win so much. did you see it go for the ball at the end when he hit it high? It just wants to play ping pong….