Robots will win the World Cup by 2050Boffins footie claimBy Nick Farrell: Thursday 13 January 2005, 07:04JAPANESE ROBOTIC boffins think that by 2050 they will be able to create a team of robots who could beat any international football side.According to the Scotsman, here, Keio University of Tokyo, the recent winners of robot world cup in Lisbon, said they were well on target to be the winners of football’s World Cup.The head boffin at the Robot Laboratory in Osaka, Shu Ishiguro optimistically said that after his team had its World Cup victory "we will have a society in which humans and artificial intelligence are completely in harmony."So far they have made a footballer 38cm tall and weighing just 2.4kg. It operates completely independently of human input, makes its decisions based on information that it perceives. It can recognise the football, approach, and kick it. It can identify an opponent and shield the ball.The downside is that it is too slow and can't bend it like Beckham. It does have eyes in the back of its head which are quite handy at watching for the paparazzi when you cheat on your Hammond home organ to have a fling with an Australian toaster.Whether the Football authorities will ever allow mechanical players to kick off in international competition is another matter. However, we are in favour of anything that replaces a system that turns highly overpaid sportsmen into celebrities.
