
Speedgate: World’s First Sport Generated by AI - Impossible
https://news.developer.nvidia.com/speedgate-worlds-first-sport-generated-by-ai
======
minimaxir
Per the embedded video (also used on the official site), they used textgenrnn
([https://github.com/minimaxir/textgenrnn](https://github.com/minimaxir/textgenrnn))
to train the text-generating AI, which I made. Although I really wish they
said that explicitly: not as a means of attribution, but to make the text
generation more accessible/transparent which is why I made textgenrnn in the
first place.

GPT-2 would likely have much more _interesting_ results on such longer input
text. If anyone from AKQA reads this, I'm open to help setting that up.

~~~
ANPEQ-1
A lot of digital agencies claim they have AI/ML capabilities and are really
just using others' tools. It's a shame they lacked the integrity to attribute
you.

~~~
brod
It's finding value in those tools which the agency (and most others, mine
included) would be claiming to be capable of and I think to a reasonable
extent they've proven that, even with a somewhat underwhelming result.

~~~
ANPEQ-1
By performing a self-promotional stunt?

This isn't solving problems, it's riding the AI wave - and claiming the
capability - while leveraging the work of others, without attribution. I mean
they even use the damn program in their promotional video.

I'd be much more liable to support a "We AI and you can too!" than some
cynical marketing activation.

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sehugg
Looks like they're using Keras to generate random phrases, then winnowing them
down to the best few, which they extrapolate into a functional sport rulebook
with their human brains.

Could have probably done this with a Markov chain as well. "apt-get install
dadadodo" for instance.

~~~
jbattle
Not terribly impressive when you phrase it like that. I can make a machine
that shakes up a bunch of words. But then if I pick out the words to make a
poem I haven't invented a poem-writing machine

~~~
ANPEQ-1
It's not impressive. They didn't even build the tool, they just snagged the
code from GitHub, said "This is AI!!!!" and without attributing it to the
builder. It's cynical marketing ploy.

~~~
tomnipotent
What does writing the algorithms have to do anything? Did you write the
programming languages you use in your projects? Did you write the code behind
your OS?

What about all those silly carpenters that don't forge their own hammers? How
dare they! What fakes! Or doctors that don't create their own medicine?! The
horror!

~~~
ANPEQ-1
False equivalence. It's more like if I build a house based on someone else's
plans, and then declare myself an architect.

AKQA is happy to make themselves sound smart in their video, when in fact all
they did was run someone else's program, and without attribution. If that
constitutes an AI practice then I'm in the wrong line of work - I should just
be down at the city planning office photocopying other architects' plans.

~~~
tomnipotent
Software is a tool like a hammer, not a plan like a blueprint. A tool is
something you use in pursuit of another goal; a blueprint is the goal itself.

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
That all depends how you use it. An OS? Definitely a tool, but it also has
plans, blueprints, etc. for how to use them and _build on them_. Honestly,
software is more like machinery- it's defined, more or less, by the inputs it
receives, the outputs it creates, and the configuration tools that the machine
has.

Some machines do very simple things, like turn a wheel and move a piston- but
this very simple mechanism can be very valuable when it comes in the form of a
twelve-ton press. Other machines are much more complicated, such as NC or CNC
machines, which take a multitude of inputs and turn them into one output.
Looking at the repository in question here, this one thing, built on Python (a
specification for how to put machines together) is more or less its own little
factory- it can take raw inputs, and spit out a usable, finished product.

To me, textgenrnn what nVidia seems to have done here is borrow an entire
factory, feed it some materials, and do some finishing afterwards. From a
manufacturing perspective, that's totally fine- but _generally_ the company
that does the work in the middle gets paid, and given that this is a _free
repository_ that I doubt nVidia donated to, it would, at the very least, be
nice to see minimaxr get some _credit_ for his work.

People still _buy_ tools, too.

------
tsumnia
Looking over the rules, it looks like there's an assumed "causal"-ness to the
game (not good, not bad, just noting there's an assumption that everyone will
play by the rules at all times). Based on the rules [1], there doesn't seem to
be any consequence to fouling if you do not have the ball. What stops a non-
carrying team player from stepping in the center or tackling a player?

Given the current ruleset, nothing. Three fouls give you a demerit, three
demerits give you a reprimand, 3 reprimands ... to infinity. Secondly, is
there a difference in severity to stepping in the center vs. tackling?

I get that you could say that 2 fouls is a timeout, and certain rules carry
higher penalties (1 for center stepping, 2 for tackling), but it is not
written.

[1] [https://playspeedgate.org/8/](https://playspeedgate.org/8/)

~~~
everdev
Right. And kicking a rugby ball at full strength from a short distance towards
an unprotected goalie might hurt. In the video they're only lightly passing
and kicking the ball.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How else would you score? In practice you don't kick the ball at players in
football (soccer) or kick/throw it at them in rugby because you might give
away possession; but it's a tactic in hardball games like baseball and cricket
AIUI.

I've only trained as a referee in one sport and it had a "be a sportsman"
element to the rules giving the ref leeway to determine that play is
unbecoming of the sport and so give away a foul. But in that sport smashing
the ball _at_ players is normal.

Sure, if you're playing with pals, or for a promotional video then you're
going to be less combatative.

FWIW the rules don't say you can't knee, pull, or poke (eg in the eye!).

Also, the penalty rule sounds impossible - you have to score "from the centre
gate", but being in the centre gate is a foul and gives possession to the
opposing team ... ah, no, wait: "Moving through the center gate will result in
a foul." ... so it's fine, you just aren't allowed to leave the centre gate
[does the foul activate from the time of entry or the time of exit?].

~~~
edgarvaldes
>In practice you don't kick the ball at players in football (soccer)

Yes you do, just not intentionally. It is common for a player to shoot near
the goal line in two ways: excellent placement with just the required
strength, or a powerful shot.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
"kick at" implicitly includes intent IMO. You kick the ball and it hits
players, but rarely do you intend that as it is often counter productive (not
hitting the goal, not making a pass; giving up possession).

~~~
edgarvaldes
A classical example is the direct free kick

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_free_kick#/media/File:V...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_free_kick#/media/File:Van_Persie_free_kick.jpg)

------
gwbas1c
What I don't get is: How much of this was created by AI, and how much is human
intervention?

How does the AI judge what is a good game versus a bad game?

~~~
kristaps
The article says that the AI generated 1k candidates which were then reviewed
by humans which then selected 3 which seemed most promising and then massaged
them into the final rules. Makes the "AI" part of the project look much less
impressive if it took so much human input afterwards.

~~~
WalterSear
If this is AI, then so is the I-Ching.

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brian_herman__
Sounds like Calvin ball
[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/05/05](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/05/05)

~~~
LeoPanthera
Or Guyball: [https://youtu.be/nYeCUT7jNkM](https://youtu.be/nYeCUT7jNkM)

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linksnapzz
Perhaps a better use of AI would be to flesh out a comprehensive rulebook for
playing 43-man Squamish. _Someone_ needs to figure out what the Probate Judge
& Baggage Smasher are supposed to do if it rains...

[https://www.madcoversite.com/quiz_olympics.html](https://www.madcoversite.com/quiz_olympics.html)

~~~
jamesakirk
ctrl-f squamish ret Thanks for being awesome!

------
kosievdmerwe
I'm not entirely sure what the restrictions on the defenders are (other than
having to return to their half after their team scores), but there's an
exploit I can see already:

> Only 1 defender is allowed in the end-gate circle at any time.

This says "defender", which is a role. So forwards would be allowed to bolster
the gate's defense, which might make sense given the possession mechanic.

The lack of tackling and rules about passing direction, with body blocking
allowed, means that huddling a few players together and creeping up might be a
viable strategy that the defending team can't really counter. It would be a
valid strategy in Rugby too (where you're only allowed to tackle the ball
carrier), were it not for rules against obstructing tacklers.

This kind of turtling strategy seems contrary to the nature of the game, so if
effective it would need nerfing/banning.

~~~
ncallaway
I think it's an ambiguous sentence with two possible interpretations:

> Only 1 defender, [but any other player] is allowed in the end-gate circle at
> any time.

> Only 1 defender, [and no other player] is allowed in the end-gate circle at
> any time.

I agree that it could use a clarification, but I think as you've noted the
first interpretation doesn't make much sense in the game. If I were a referee
of this sport, I would certainly interpret the rules as the second sentence.

So, if _any_ forward entered the circle at any time, I would penalize them for
that. I would use the fact that the rules that that only defenders are allowed
in the end-gate, which implies that forwards are not allowed.

~~~
kosievdmerwe
Well the ambiguity is "defender" meaning "a player on the defending team" and
"a player with the role defender".

Actually the second interpretation could have an interesting effect, since it
also doesn't specify team. So if the attacking team puts one of their
defenders in the circle the defending team is out of luck.

------
nsxwolf
Looks like a game where you get kicked in the face a lot.

------
gknoy
The rules [0] are presented pretty nicely. This looks like a lot of fun for
twelve players.

0: [https://playspeedgate.org/5/](https://playspeedgate.org/5/)

------
chrisco255
What I couldn't quite grasp from the rules is how the center-gate works. Do
you have to pass or kick the ball through the center gate to get to the other
side or are you allowed to go around the center gate? Also, does the ball have
to be kicked through the end gates on the ground or can you punt it right
over? Seems like it might be hard to judge whether a goal was made since you
can come at it from so many angles, if you're allowed to kick as high as you
want.

Reminds me more of Aussie Rules Football than Rugby, to be honest, but sans
tackling.

~~~
yeahboats
The ball must be kicked through and must be below the tips, so no punting way
over:

>All gates must be cleared with a drop kick or grubber kick.

>Gates must be cleared below gate tips.

For the center gate, you only have to clear it to unlock scoring, looks like
then you can ignore it (other than not stepping through it)

~~~
jerf
"For the center gate, you only have to clear it to unlock scoring, looks like
then you can ignore it (other than not stepping through it)"

I believe you can see that idea in pick-up basketball when you only have one
hoop; the opposing team who steals a ball must "clear" the ball by taking it
back to some line (like the half-court line) before attempting to score,
simulating a full court. In this case it is "intended" [1] to prevent you from
just grabbing the ball from a scoring team and scoring immediately yourself.
It adds some momentum to the game, otherwise it's rather unstable.

[1]: Or, if you prefer, "without this rule Speedgate would have been much less
likely to survive the winnowing process and thus been found evolutionarily
unfit".

~~~
chrisco255
Ah I didn't catch that you could score on any gate. Does the ball not change
hands after a score?

~~~
tempestn
I found the rules a bit unclear about this, but I don't think you can score on
any gate. It talks about scoring on end "gates", but it also says your team's
three defenders can only travel to the offensive side of the field once you've
cleared the end gate, which implies that you're trying to score on only one
end gate.

------
everdev
Here's the sports official site:
[https://playspeedgate.org/](https://playspeedgate.org/)

------
exabrial
> or an exploding Frisbee game

I'm intrigued.

------
dugluak
They picked rules from almost all kinds of sports in the world but did they
have that kind of diversity in the 'human fine tuning' piece of it? Otherwise
I guess the end result is going to be bit biased.

------
mcphage
> trained a recurrent neural network and a deep convolutional generative
> adversarial network on over 400 sports with the aim of creating a new and
> original sport.

Did they share anywhere what their training data looked like?

~~~
TheLoneTechNerd
At 32 seconds into the video, you can see a few frames of a Google Sheet where
one column is the name of the sport (you can see "Quidditch" quite a few
times) and a second column is a rule, like "The Chasers are there to try and
keep posession of the Quaffle...". Looks like one row per rule. Teh filename
is "AKQA AI SPORT".

No idea if that's what they used for the actual training, though.

~~~
tapland
Baseball is represented by 6 rules. Ultimate Frisbee is represented by 18.
Quidditch is represented by 20+.

Wikipedias list of sports is in the neighborhood of 1200 sports:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports)
Excluding an extra list of 150 or so ball games.

So Baseball has about an average representation of rules, whereas quidditch is
weighted way higher than the average sport.

~~~
mcphage
> So Baseball has about an average representation of rules, whereas quidditch
> is weighted way higher than the average sport.

I'm sorry, I'm having trouble following what you mean here. Could you explain
it a bit further?

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lukeholder
Looks a lot like Australian Rules Football (AFL) without the tackling.

~~~
greenknight
Exactly, But i think they dont realise how good people can get at kicking a
ball. Imagine how different this game would be played in australia...

~~~
greenknight
for those who dont know what afl is --
[https://youtu.be/CCSMruUC4-o?t=12](https://youtu.be/CCSMruUC4-o?t=12)

------
hokkos
So a "the ocho" generator.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/theocho/](https://www.reddit.com/r/theocho/)

------
TaupeRanger
Yet another "look what we did with AI" hype piece where all they did was hand
pick some output and mash it together to make something intelligible. Silly
nonsense.

------
jonplackett
Would have been more interesting if they’d also used an AI to play each game
and see how that turns out. Does the game have a simple always-win strategy?
If so that games is gonna be pretty dull to play and watch.

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machbio
there seems to be no analysis on why the size and dimension of the ball is
chosen - very few games have balls that are not spherical.. seems too much
human intervention in generating the Sport

~~~
dosshell
They say you can use spherical balls too (to the right in the rule image). It
seems to not be important for the game.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Rugby balls add a deal of randomness; are much harder to drop kick and grub-
kick.

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mbell
This doesn't seem particularly viable as a 'sport', i.e. an athletic
competition, but maybe fun as a group activity. e.g. You have 3 defenders that
seem to be allowed to camp without restriction a 6' tall, 10' wide 'goal'. Put
3 athletes on this duty and no one will ever score.

~~~
stevenking86
You can score from either side so 3 can't quite block both sides if your ball
movement is crisp.

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dariusj18
Does the extra goal make it a total of 3 or 5 points for the possession?

~~~
everdev
The ricochet turns a goal from 2 points into 3. Seems like an extreme amount
of difficulty to return kick an oblong ball in the air through the gates for
only 1 point.

~~~
aidenn0
I read the rules as meaning you can catch it with any part of your body and
then immediately return kick it, which would be easier.

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hwestiii
I always thought Quidditch sounded like it had been developed by an AI.

------
dugluak
Is the background music in the video also AI generated?

~~~
mkagenius
Yes, it was learned by PAGAN purely-automated GAN. It can form new music by
learning rules from existing music and altering them in a symbiotic manner
which pleases human ear. And of course some fine tuning by humans.

------
themdonuts
Seems like they invented Gaelic Football

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RosanaAnaDana
Well that promo video was utterly uninformative. How do you play; is it fun?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It did seem rather like a modern product advert to me too. Far less
informative than it might have been.

------
soperj
Basically just rugby with some nets and goalies.

~~~
Fiaxhs
I don't see nets? [https://news.developer.nvidia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04...](https://news.developer.nvidia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/04/Speedgate_Field_Guide-1.png)

It's really different from rugby.

~~~
soperj
the gates are nets. It's not really that different. You pass the same, they
even name the kicks the same (grubber, and drop kick) and it uses a rugby
ball.

------
pulse7
It is some kind of rugby...

------
shpx
What would the equivalent of the Cloud to Butt extension for "AI" be? I get
annoyed every time I see this word now and I'd like to alleviate that.

~~~
thosakwe
"AI," "machine learning," "modern," "blazing fast," and "for humans" for me.

~~~
make3
machine learning is fine, it's meaningful technical term at least. AI doesn't
mean anything

~~~
spaceheretostay
AI is a technical term with a specific meaning:

> Computer science defines AI research as the study of "intelligent agents":
> any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize
> its chance of successfully achieving its goals.[1]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence)

~~~
make3
yeah, but these days AI is applied to anything related to machine learning.
most of current AI is supervised learning, which doesn't fit your description

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quotha
Are you sure this wasn't created by Homer Simpson?

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emgee_1
I am interested if you start selling onions or tomatoes on the internet. /s

