Sony AI has built a table tennis robot called Ace. It has been playing against some of the best table tennis players in the world – and winning.
One tech reporter who recently spent a few days with all kinds of robots says it is getting harder to be impressed by them. Smooth joint movements and skillful robot fingers are two things that still stand out. Ace has neither of them. But in the reporter's view, it can do something we all need to be ready for: it can change its plan in a split second.
In test matches against professional players, Ace could predict where the ball would go and return shots in a surprisingly attacking way. Then one rally brought a surprise. A player's shot touched the top of the net, and the ball suddenly changed direction. Ace adjusted in a split second, reacting faster than most humans could.
That was not all. When a ball would usually force a player to defend, Ace often hit back even harder. It treated an attacking shot as an easy chance to strike back with more force.
Why does this matter? In a paper in the journal Nature, the researchers behind Ace pointed out that AI systems can already match or beat human experts in many computer games. Real sports like table tennis are a different story. They need fast and exact movements against an opponent, close to the limit of human reaction time. The team believes Ace is the first real-world robot that can compete with top human players.
Of course, Ace did not crush the professionals it played. Still, at times the way it played seemed almost super-human. We are only at the start of an age of robots that can correct themselves as they move. Watching Ace change its moves so quickly is both amazing and a little scary. You don't need to be a table tennis fan to see why.