Artificial intelligence still can’t beat us at football


We are all waiting for the future to come. I remember when I was little, we were selling videotapes, and later DVDs, and there were so many fantasy movies which would take you to the marvellous 2000s where the cars were flying and robots were strolling everywhere. Everything was operated by computers and it was looking so freakishly unbelievable. Well, it’s 2018 now and although there aren’t any flying cars yet, computers do run basically everything. If you have a sceptical mind you’re are thinking “Yeah, right… a machine cannot do what humans do”, keep reading and let me prove you wrong.

A robot named Pepper holding an iPad

At a recent AI conference, the results of a survey that took place among the experts are showing that by 2050 the artificial intelligence will be able to perform any task that a human can. Now you might be thinking “Yeah, but it’s still 2018, so we should be living like those back to the future movies”, but let’s stop for a second and think what can AI (Artificial Intelligence) do today?

Starting from everyday human tasks, an AI can:

  • - Recognise emotions in an image of faces;
  • - Recognise objects;
  • - Recognise emotions in speech;
  • - Speak;
  • - Finding the answer you are looking for in a text;
  • - Transcribing and translating better than experts;
  • - Drive;
  • - Scheduling meetings;
  • - Be a personal trainer;
  • - Writing poems and music;
  • - Lip-reading;
  • - Play any game better than a human;
  • - And even play football…poorly;  


Now let’s move to things that are performed only by experts among humans:

  • - Analysing DNA;
  • - Detecting blindness from retinal photos;
  • - Spotting cancer in tissues;
  • - Detecting crop diseases;
  • - Detecting malware;
  • - Trading stocks and handling insurance claims;
  • - Doing legal research;
  • - Writing software unit tests;
  • - Designing logos;
  • - Writing film scripts;


Trust me there are so many more tasks to be listed, but these are only the ones my limited mind can imagine. If this is what the AI can do today… imagine in 20 years!

Even some of the things which seem to be off limits for anyone but a human being have already being performed by robots. They are creative enough to paint and compose and apparently aren’t unfamiliar with emotions if they can write comedies. I know it sounds weird, but it’s the truth.

One of the predictions for the future of AI is that we won’t need lawyers soon.  This sounds too good to be true but here it gets even better.

Joshua Browder, born 1997 (yep, that’s right), created the AI bot, DoNotPlay, to help his friend battling parking tickets. It quickly became viral and has since saved nearly $11 million of fines. Now, the bot can do even more like demanding compensation from delayed flights, helping people with government housing assistance etc. The next target is divorce. So you can imagine what’s going on in the top law firms. You cannot see the bot arguing in a courtroom (yet), but it does ask you series of questions about your case, lets you explain your unique situation and then instructs you on what to expect.

The future is here!

In conclusion, it’s time to open up our sceptical minds and accept the idea of robots doing everything, everywhere. The future is here and even if the thought of flying cars still scares me, I believe everyone would benefit from saving money on fines.

Author: Darina Kosta

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