The Toyota Engineering Society has created an android that scores baskets better than professional basketball players. Named CUE, the robot reportedly uses artificial intelligence to learn to shoot better than players from Japanese B League team Alvark Tokyo. It can apparently now shoot with nearly 100-percent accuracy at short distances.
It seems the team, which is sponsored by Toyota, has more or less adopted CUE, assigning it a number 70 jersey and the position of shooting guard. However, the robot doesn't actually move so it's unlikely to be appearing in any B League fixtures just yet. The robot is 190 cm (6 ft 3 in) tall.
According to a reports in The Asahi Shimbun and Newsweek, the robot uses artificial intelligence to learn to make better shots, having practiced some 200,000 times. Apparently the 17 engineers were inspired by Sakuragi Hanamichi, protagonist of the manga Slam Dunk. Remarkably, the team of engineers had no robotics experience before building CUE.
We're in touch with Toyota and Alvark Tokyo and will update this story as we learn more. You can see video of the robot in action on the Alvark Tokyo Facebook page and in The Asahi Shimbun.
Sources: Alvark Tokyo, The Asahi Shimbun, Newsweek
