[K-SCIENCE] AI World Cup

Cube-shaped players are rushing to the ball upon the start of a soccer match.

The robot players seen on the screen and identified with their numbers are controlled by artificial intelligence.

The first goal of the game is made after engaging in a fierce battle for the ball.

The exciting game played by the robot footballers drew cheers and sighs of amazement from the audience.

It is the world's first AI World Cup held in South Korea's central city of Daejeon and participated by 24 teams from 12 countries.

Two Korean teams met in the final after beating competitors from Google and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The leader of the winning team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) explained that the key to beating out all the advanced algorithms lies in three million steps of simulation practices that his team has done.

[Kim Woo-Joon, Ph.D. student at KAIST/leader of the winning team]
"The algorithm is designed for the AI agents to learn to maximize accumulated rewards from an environment that they can interact with."

The commentary about the games was also carried out by AI that analyzed them on a real-time basis.

The World Cup also featured AI-powered journalists for the games, whose articles were considered as good as those by human sports writers.

[Bang Hyo-Choong, PH.D. professor, KAIST]
"Artificial intelligence can be used in various fields. So we prepared for this competition by comprehensively using AI."

The World Cup event has proven that artificial intelligence is ready to take on the world of football as well.