Will Robots Someday Win Soccer's World Cup?

DC's Smithsonian museums (there are 17 of them here in the city) are among America's most treasured and visited places. But the Smithsonian also publishes a series of some of the most interesting, fact-filled blogs appearing anywhere on the internet. Each Sunday, The Prices Do DC re-posts an entry about the Smithsonian, many of which appeared in 1 of the institution's blogs. Hope you enjoy and maybe we'll see you soon at the Smithsonian.

In 1997, man and machine went head-to-head in a battle of strategical prowess; after six games of chess, world champion Garry Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. It was hailed as a seminal moment in computer science—if a computer could beat a human at chess, a game long held as the pinnacle of mental strategy, what else could computers accomplish?

A little more than three months after Kasparov's defeat, a cadre of robotics experts sought to push another boundary in artificial intelligence. Convening in Nagoya, Japan, during the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 40 teams of robotics experts participated in the world's first Robotics Cup. Their stated objective: By the middle of the 21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win a soccer game, complying with the official rules of FIFA, against the winner of the most recent World Cup.

The manifesto, which might seem more like science fiction than a practical goal, wasn't an entirely new idea to the robotics community even in 1997. The concept of a robot soccer game had been kicked around the robotics community for years—it was first mentioned by Professor Alan Mackworth, of the University of British Columbia, in his paper "On Seeing Robots," where he argued that building a robotic soccer team could help solve several problems of modern robotics (their inability to cooperate, for instance, or their inability to determine where the ball might go). From that paper, Mackworth and his team at UBC launched the Dynamo Project, the world's first attempt at an autonomous robotic soccer team. The Dynamo Project carried out a series of successful experiments from 1992 through 1994, and is seen by many as the crucial precursor to the Robotics Cup.

To continue reading this post, which 1st appeared in Smithsonian.com, click here

Brazil's Dance with the Devil: Love of Soccer Battles Sports Greed

Today, activist sports writer Dave Zirin is in Brazil covering the biggest sports story in the world - soccer's World Cup. But 3 days ago, he was here in DC talking about his new book, Brazil's Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy with a standing-room only crowd of fellow social advocates at Busboys and Poets.

For more than a year, Brazilians, who as a nation consider soccer a veritable religion, have been protesting the staging of the World Cup by FIFA, the event's organizer, and a too-compliant government, claiming the combination is responsible for financial waste and corruption that is jeopardizing the country's educational, health, and housing services.

Dave Zirin signs books after his talk

"People are protesting soccer in Brazil. In Brazil, soccer is a religion. Imagine a protest in New York City against pizza," Zirin said. "Polls show that 55% of Brazil wants its team to lose. FIFA is as popular as FEMA was in New Orleans after Katrina."

Zirin, who has been covering the Olympics and World Cups for more than a decade, says "the waste and carnage" of such events is mind-boggling. For example, winter events have paid millions to fly snow to mountains. The cost of the recent corruption-filled Winter Olympics in Sochi has exceed $9 billion dollars.

The sports writer often quotes his friend, former Olympian and 1968 Mexico City protester John Carlos, who says the Olympics are only held every 4 years because "it takes them 4 years to count the money."

"It's not that there's no money, it's a question of who gets the money," Zirin said. That controversy is particularly acute in Brazil since the country will also be hosting the Olympics in 2 years.

Here are just some of the statistics for the 2014 World Cup. It is expected to cost more than $15 billion to put on. FIFA required that brand new stadiums be built, many with luxury boxes for only the richest fans. One stadium, constructed in the Amazon Rainforest, has not yet been completed and is rumored to be used as an outdoor prison center after the games are completed. More than 250,000 Brazilians have been displaced from their homes. The government has mobilized more troops for the event than America deployed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is all satire so dark that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert wouldn't have dared to cover it," Zirin said.

But many in Brazil have been striking back, taking to the streets and staging protest strikes. "They are saying we want FIFA quality wages, we want FIFA quality schools, we want FIFA quality hospitals," Zirin said.

The situation is heightened because of Brazil's long history with European colonialism, slavery, and racial and economic inequality.  "They do not want their soccer to become just another commodity for foreign consumption," Zirin said.

The sports writer maintains that Americans should be following the Brazilian happenings as the country's people take on authoritarian power, corporate greed, and political cronyism and corruption. "All that is what makes Brazil our story, too," Zirin maintains.

Zirin believes that the Brazilian actions may be the beginning of a world-wide movement to curb the excesses and abuses of giant sporting competitions. "I see a renaissance of revolution against these sports organizations that act like Mafia cartels for their own personal enrichment," Zirn said.

And while that may or may not be true, it is certain that with soccer's enormous popularity, the whole world will be watching what happens both on and off the field in Brazil for the next 4 weeks.