Sony's AI Robot Just Beat Elite Table Tennis Players — And It's a Bigger Deal Than You Think
AI beating humans at games is old news. Deep Blue took Kasparov in ‘97. AlphaGo stunned the world in 2016. But every one of those victories happened in digital environments with perfect information and unlimited thinking time. Table tennis is a completely different beast. And this week, Sony AI’s robot Ace became the first autonomous machine to defeat elite human players under official competition rules — earning the cover of Nature in the process. ...