Artificial Intelligence

Sony AI Robot Ace Beats Elite Ping-Pong Players

Is AI in sports a revolutionary leap forward or a threat to the human spirit that makes athletics worth watching?

Published 7 days ago

Sony AI Robot Ace Beats Elite Ping-Pong Players

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Above: A man plays ping-pong with a robot in Shanghai, China, on Oct. 27, 2025. Image credit: CFOTO/Future Publishing/Getty Images

The Spin

Narrative A

Sony AI's robot Ace proves that machines can compete at elite levels in one of the most demanding real-world sports. Beating three elite table tennis players with a 75% return rate and 16 direct aces, while also pulling off tricky spins and net shots, is something most humans couldn't manage. Not only can AI perceive, reason and act, but its abilities will help athletes and coaches develop and grow their sports greater than ever before imagined.

3Laws Robotics Daily Mail

Narrative B

A robot beating ping-pong players is impressive engineering, but it misses the entire point of sports. What makes athletics meaningful is human imperfection — the grind, the setbacks, the shared history that fans emotionally connect with. No robot can replicate a Messi-style underdog story, and over-relying on AI risks stripping sports of the human creativity and instinct that make them worth watching in the first place.

Aswajith P. Nair on Medium University of Oxford