Why DeepMind Is Sending AI Humanoids to Soccer Camp

DeepMind's attempt to teach an AI to play soccer started with a virtual player writhing around on the floor--so it nailed at least one aspect of the game right from kickoff. But pinning down the mechanics of the beautiful game--from basics like running and kicking to higher-order concepts like teamwork and tackling--proved a lot more challenging, as new research from the Alphabet-backed AI firm demonstrates. The work--published this week in the journal Science Robotics--might seem frivolous, but learning the fundamentals of soccer could one day help robots to move around our world in more natural, more human ways. "In order to'solve' soccer, you have to actually solve lots of open problems on the path to artificial general intelligence [AGI]," says Guy Lever, a research scientist at DeepMind. "There's controlling the full humanoid body, coordination--which is really tough for AGI--and actually mastering both low-level motor control and things like long-term planning."