Soccer has been the favourite sport around the world and people are always very keen to watch the FIFA World Cup. With Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo being the all-time favourites of everyone. Just think of competing them with robots or robots replacing them as players. Which side do you think you would be on? Humans or Artificial Intelligence? just imagine watching a Soccer game where two teams of small, round robots swarm across a miniature soccer field, knocking a bright orange golf ball between them with surprising force? You might not believe me but that is something which is going to be a reality very soon. Manuela Veloso, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University will soon grace the Northeastern University with a graduation address. Manuela is the one responsible for bringing the idea of robots to life. Robots are the legacy of Manuela.
Veloso had a dream of fielding a team of autonomous robots capable of beating the human World Cup champions by 2050. She co–founded a RoboCup which is an international initiative which will give wings to her dream of robots beating human World Cup champions. Veloso and her students have been able to design a robot soccer team who have been a RoboCup Small Size League world champions several times.
The research of Veloso is purely based on Artificial Intelligence and is not only limited to playing soccer. Soccer is just a way by which her robots would be able to autonomously coordinate their movements as a team and adapt to the strategy of their opponents. Veloso has a vision for the future where Artificial Intelligence and humans depend on each other. Artificial Intelligence has the capability of helping out humans with complex tasks but as it is a machine it has its limitations. Here, comes the role of humans helping them out in such cases. Thus, creating a space where Artificial Intelligence and Humans are surviving together.
So, let’s just cross our fingers and wish for a better world where Artificial Intelligence and humans go together.
Priyanka Rawat