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News & Current Events Apr 22, 2026 at 5:12 PM

AI-powered robot beats elite table tennis players

Posted by jupa300


AI-powered robot beats elite table tennis players
the Guardian
AI-powered robot beats elite table tennis players
In feat hailed as milestone in robotics, Sony AI’s Ace wins three out of five matches played under official rules

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24 Comments

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Icy_Hovercraft_1110 3 days ago +11
Trying to read the movements of that robot would be way harder than playing against a human.
11
swizzcheez 3 days ago +27
And my roomba can beat *anyone* in limbo, except Hermes Conrad of course.
27
tedsmitts 3 days ago +10
You haven't seen the last of Barbados Slim! Now, goodbye forever.
10
Violet_Paradox 3 days ago +27
So does a wall.
27
Fun-Page-6211 3 days ago +6
This is a reason why this article is a nothingburger.
6
Volistar 3 days ago +1
Why do you add burger at the end of nothing? Serious question.
1
Fun-Page-6211 2 days ago +1
It is actually a word to mean that it is nothing
1
grunt_monkey_ 2 days ago +1
Cos then you still get the bun.
1
Nashadelic 2 days ago +1
just like competing with a wall
1
lkc159 2 days ago +2
The wall can't return a ball; the ball just bounces off it. It feels like you'd be able to angle the shot so the wall's "returned" ball misses the table completely.
2
Think_Assistant_1656 2 days ago +1
what an useless comment, it's surreal you cannot understand the work that went behind this achievement
1
ResearcherSad9357 3 days ago +11
Computers beat Gary Kasparov at chess 30+ years ago, have all chess players been replaced yet? Robotic arms have been in use for decades doing even more impressive high precision tasks than this.
11
rubywpnmaster 2 days ago +6
Yes. The AIs are so good at chess now it’s considered a fluke if a grandmaster can beat them. Humans have to play human chess or they get f****** obliterated.
6
ResearcherSad9357 2 days ago +1
And yet human played chess is more popular than ever and nobody cares about the bot tournaments.
1
jphamlore 3 days ago +5
Is the technology there for a robot to be the world's best golfer?
5
CIS-E_4ME 2 days ago +2
It's got the golf part down, but it's struggling with drunkenly driving a car into a ditch.
2
asdhjasdhlkjashdhgf 3 days ago +2
it would be "fair" only when the maximal parallel cameras looking at the scene have similar distance than a human vision, the photo suggests otherwise - means two fundamental different systems are compared and the use of the word AI only glosses over such facts. Predicting a curve and speed in 3d is somewhat 70's/80's, field of vision is another ballgame - literally (see the black curtains around the scene?).
2
Silvershanks 3 days ago +2
Um.... how is this news? How is this a story? Are we amazed when a blender can out-perform a human at blending? I'm not knocking the quality engineering that people achieved here - but come on. This is dumb.
2
lkc159 2 days ago +2
>blender can out-perform a human at blending? I think the equivalent comparison would be an AI operated blender/AI blender outperforming a human using a blender.
2
PumpkinHead01 3 days ago
Wow so we've managed to build a computer to beat a human at physical pong. A feat not achieved since....1972
0
jupa300 3 days ago -10
> In feat hailed as milestone in robotics, Sony AI’s Ace wins three out of five matches played under official rules Seems we will achieve Singularity somewhat earlier than prediction.
-10
michal_hanu_la 3 days ago +3
Specifically, the much more narrowly defined Table Tennis Singularity. (By the way, I have this car that runs faster than Usain Bolt. Cool, right? When it happens to start, that is.)
3
NinjaEngineer 2 days ago +1
Yeah... Because predicting a ball's trajectory is something no computer has managed to do before.
1
-password-invalid- 2 days ago +1
Robot designed to do one thing only, does it well.
1
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