In what year will a humanoid robot beat an olympic champion at their sport?
13
67
630
2060
36%
2025-2030
18%
2030-2034
26%
2035-2039
2%
2040-2044
2%
2045-2049
2%
2050-2054
2%
2055-2059
2%
2060 onwards
7%
2024
2%
Other

Market will resolve...

YES if a robot with the characteristics given below defeats the current olympic champion at their sport within the detailed time intervals.

NO if humans are still undefeated within the given time intervals.

OTHER if an unexpected situation happens.

The idea is for the robot to be physically similar to a human so the competition is fair. It must abide to the following limitations (which I'm open to changing, if given a good reason), as to make the competition fair.

-The robot must be approximately humanoid. Its design cannot grant it a notable advantage. Having hooks for hands is okay for 100m sprint, but not for boxing. If there's no consensus about its design being fair, then I'll decide.

-It's weight, height, proportions and other physical characteristics must have a precedent within the sport, or be otherwise reasonable. No 200kg boxing robots allowed. Longer-than-average arms for swimming are permited.

-It doesn't need to carry its own energy storage. It can be plugged into a cable.

-In the case of team sports, robots can't use "telepathy" (communicating to coordinate their actions as one).

-All real time processing must be done by a computer inside the robot. Having a supercomputer halfway around the world controlling it feels like cheating.

I may bet on this market.

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bought Ṁ1 2024 YES

Weightlifting seems like it should be an easy one for a robot to win. Doesn't require much agility; very controlled environment.

@PeterF Not much agility, but a great deal of strength and coordination is required. I'm not convinced that current humanoid robots can lift 270kg above their heads.

@TiagoChamba Agreed, but only because "humanoid" is a pretty restrictive category. (And it's not a category that many robot-makers are incentivized to focus on. E.g. warehouse or assembly-line robots are much stronger than that, but aren't humanoid.)

@PeterF Yeah, there isn't much incentive to defeat humans at physical sports. Or at least not the same incentive as there was with chess.

I suspect that the first humanoid robot to satisfy all conditions will do so as a secondary rather than primary goal. A side project for the company, to show how capable its new model is.

bought Ṁ10 2025-2030 YES

From your description it sounds like it doesn't have to happen in an official competition -- unofficial (but impartially-witnessed) events are OK, right?

E.g. imagine Boston Dynamics decided to invite Usain Bolt to run against their latest-model robot, right there in the Boston Dynamics warehouse. Would that count?

@PeterF I feel better able to guess "when will robots be technically up to this challenge" than to guess "when will there exist some official competition that tests humans against robots"

@PeterF Yes, that's right. No official competition, but an event is alright.

In the case of an event like the 100m sprint, in which athletes don't interact with each other, it wouldn't be necessary for the robot to compete side to side against a human. If there is public proof of a robot besting a the world champion's record, then It'll resolve to YES.

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