This… this is why AI was created. Not to help you earn that degree (that you didn’t really earn) or fire all the junior staff at the company you’re managing. It’s all been about gathering a group of humanoid robots onto an astroturf pitch and forcing them to do battle in the beautiful game. That’s exactly what China’s RoBoLeague World Robot Soccer League has done. It’s all autonomous, meaning there’s no room for human intervention.
That’s cool and all, but can we bet on it?
Not that it needs any help. As entertaining as it is to watch these bots fumble around in a 3v3 format, it’s also a showcase of just how far humanoid robots have come (and how far there still is to go). At one point, you can see one of the robots tumble hard as it chases down the ball. This might once have spelt the end of its career, but now it just picks itself up and continues like nothing happened. (It’s best if you ignore the ones being stretchered off.)
The footage here is just one part of four inaugural semi-final matches played on Saturday in Beijing, showing the Vulcan Team from Tsinghua University and the Blaze Light Team from Beijing Information & Science Technology University. The Vulcan Team went on to win the tournament, according to RoboHub in a post on X, with China Agricultural University’s ShanHai Team taking home second place.
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Say what you will about the mechanical ability of the bots, but their understanding of the game is surprisingly decent — for robots. It can’t quite demand a similar paycheck to human professionals yet, but when has that stopped anyone before? Mind you, this is all a big warm-up for the World Humanoid Robot Games taking place in Beijing next year — which will see humanoid robots compete in a proper Olympics.
Would you be surprised to learn that AI-powered robotic football isn’t new? Of course not. Certain nerds have made it their life’s mission since 1997 to make this futuristic idea a reality in the form of the RoboCup. The tournament pitted more than 40 teams against one another, and drew over 5,000 pairs of eyeballs to the event in its first year. It’s still around today, with UniTree’s G1 robot boxer gearing up for a proper football match.
