Robots learn to play football

You might have seen this video of robots running around after a football, getting up after falling, and kicking goals. I found it fascinating for a few reasons:

1. The AI was trained in simulation with the skills being developed in isolation. The skills were combined in a self-play setting. Like Neo in the Matrix they learned skills and combined them in real life.
2. The robots used external “vision” sources - i.e. they couldn’t actually see
3. Strategic gameplay was one of the emergent behaviours - e.g. anticipating where the ball will be

It also made me wonder if a sign of an artificial general intelligence is a strong opinion as to whether one should call it soccer or football.

(via Import AI)