It wasn’t so long ago that I wrote my passionate plea to sports fans asking them all to buy into my belief that human referees, umpires and other such adjudicators should be replaced by technology to avoid the one thing that Alexander Pope believed made us humans: erring.
Truth be told, I felt that my opinion would be met with universal praise and an insistence that such measures be put into all sporting pursuits as soon as humanly possible. Alas, this was not to be the case and most of the responses to my post were opposed to the idea of replacing the human adjudication portion of sports. While I certainly stick to my guns on my particular stance on the issue, I was somewhat surprised to find today that there is a part of me that is vehemently opposed to the idea of humans being replaced in sports. The human part of sports that should never be replaced is simple: the players themselves.
Robots - they want you to believe they're fun
(Image: Joe Mabel)
So, while trawling the PopSci front page for blog motivation, I stumbled across this article about mini robot football players. It seemed innocent enough initially, until I read the following: “[T]he team of American robots was designed to compete in the RoboCup, an annual tournament for soccer bots that aims to develop autonomous humanoid robots that can defeat the best human players by 2050 [emphasis added].”
To me, the idea of a robot team of football players seemed like a novel idea at first – something that you’d even pay to watch on rare occasions, much like the sporadic matches between a world-class chess guru and Deep Blue. But isn’t the whole point of physical sports to be a mano-a-mano type situation that pits human players against other human players? The joy of watching competitive sports is in the flawed nature of humanity, despite the fact that, at a professional level, players perform at a much higher level than your average Joe.
If this guy could play football we'd be in trouble
(Image: EMP-SFM, Guitarpop)
If the goal of RoboCup proves true, then I fear the worst. No not a Skynet-esque takeover of the world as we know it by a race of robotic soccer stars, but instead the ugly feeling that sports may never be the same if such an event occurs. If team robotically perfect takes the field against team humanly perfect, it’s obvious to me (at least) that the outcome would be rather one sided… and much like the recent match between Germany and Australia, not to our delight.
I don’t see how I could go back to watching traditional human versus human sports having had the cold, hard reminder that we may never reach the levels of perfection offered by an artificial replacement. The reason we watch and love sporting events is because we’re watching players from various locales at the top of their game competing against other players from various locales competing at the top of their game.
Have a nice trip!
(Image: Jos Dielis)
The human element is essential to the enjoyment because we want to believe in our collective heart of hearts that if we had the same abilities and the same training that we could be on whatever team we’re supporting. We don’t want to have this belief replaced with the understanding that no matter how much ability we have or how hard we train, we’re ultimately replaceable by robots. One only has to look as far as certain modern professions to see how easily we humans can be replaced by mechanical items.
Who’s with me?
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nothing to add. I agree whole heartedly. Where would be the fun in watching computers play sports, it would be like watching a calculater calculate.
Haha, yeah have to agree with you and Dude above - like watching a calculator calculate! It’s one thing to replace umpires with computers, it would certainly introduce more fairness to the game, and allow for less player drama! But players? How could you enjoy watching a game between two teams who never falter, get tired, or miscalculate? Human teams are fallible; players get injuries, they are affected by the elements of wind and rain (and vuvuzelas), or they could simply have an off day. Like you said, a fan can always aspire to be like a professional football player… but robots would represent an unattainable calibre of athleticism!
I wouldn’t mind watching a game between two teams of robots - just to see what it’s all about, but anything beyond that defeats the purpose.