How to play Speedgate, the first sport created by AI

American advertising agency AKQA introduced speedgate (speedgate) - the first sport, the rules of which are created by artificial intelligence. The algorithm that wrote the rules of the game is based on a recurrent neural network, which was trained on textual information about 400 existing sports.

The project was developed under the Design Week in Portland, so that creative people gathered at exhibitions and conferences would have reason to stretch their muscles. The head of the Whitney Jenkins project explains that films and musical compositions have already been created by neural networks. And the idea to develop a completely new sport of theirs prompted the previous cooperation with AKQA Nike. “We thought: what if we could create a new basketball, a new football?”

The team took a text description of the rules of 400 sports. A total of about 7300 lines with separate rules. Based on these rules, the recurrent neural network (the RNN and DCGAN algorithms) created its own: it turned out about 1000 descriptions of the rules of sports competitions. Basically, these descriptions were short and, to put it mildly, “unusual”, so the developers had to think about whether it could be turned into a sport at all.

For example, at first the neural network planned to make people play “underwater parkour” or “exploding frisbee”. Also among the first projects developed by her was a sport in which players would pass the ball to each other, being in balloons and walking on a tightrope. Jenkins says:

We understood the limitations of our sport better. We knew that we could not play tens of meters above the ground, and naturally these ideas were complete nonsense. But using AI as part of the creative team, we have greatly expanded our horizons. Starting from the ideas of AI, you can get something truly unique.

Gradually, the ideas of the system became a little more meaningful. For example, she issued such a description of the sport as “small volleyball, wrestling at the rink.” The team interpreted this as a volleyball game in a small room where you are tied to the floor or you can use physical strength to grab the ball. Another early idea of ​​the car was “two big participants, a saddle, a back, the fastest upward”. The team imagined people on horseback, sitting opposite each other on a large log swinging up and down.

Creations of a neural network went through many stages of filtration:

Most of the time, we just looked at a huge table, turning our brains around and trying to figure out how it might look in real life. This is far from being so glamorous, as many people probably represent cooperation with AI. There were a lot of iterations, before the output turned out to be something understandable and, most importantly, interesting.

After processing more than 1000 ideas, AKQA found a description of a suitable sport: simple, good as a workout and accessible to many people. Further, the neural network came up with all its rules, and the project team needed only to exclude the stupidest ones from it. It was a speedgate.

The rules here are pretty simple (definitely simpler than, for example, Quidditch). Two teams of 6 people. One ball that can be thrown or kicked on the field, passing to his teammates. Only when you hold the ball, you can not move around the field. What makes the game more strategic: running speed is not as important as teamwork and competent passes. One player, even if he is Cristiano Ronaldo, will not be able to lead your team to victory. Another plus, they say in AKQA: it reduces the number of injuries.

The goal of the speedgate is to first pass the ball through the central gate (marked with two sticks). This makes it possible to score a goal. Next you need to force the ball to cross the second gate, which are on the opponent's side. This will give two points. And if one of the players of your team is behind this goal, he will immediately catch the ball and punch it back through this gate, a bonus point is given (this is called a “rebound”). It is also quite logical: if you managed to score with five of us, while one of you was running behind the gates of the enemy, then you are great, and you have the opportunity to increase the gap.

Gates ("gates", hence the name of the game) - without a net, and you can score a "two-point" in both directions, the main thing is that the ball flew between the pillars. Whitney Jenkins says his favorite generated rule relates to declaring goals:

If the team says that it scored a goal, but in fact it is not, the points are given to the opposite team. Apparently, our AI appreciates honesty.

The system did not stop creating rules. She was also “fed” by 10,400 logos of various sports and teams, from which she generated 6,400 options for speedgate (in the end, they chose one with a characteristic image of the central gates and pillars). The same method was used to create a slogan, which the first players already rated and chanted the first fans. "Become face to the ball to become a ball to be above the ball."

AKQA made a field for the new sport, which they now play every Saturday morning. The full list of rules is available on the website . So far, the goal is to create several teams from various creative agencies and IT companies at the Design Week in Portland to arrange a small league. “We played with college athletes, with children, with children against adults,” says Jenkins. - “It's simple and fun, a good morning workout, which also strengthens the team spirit. Everyone loves speedgate. ”

How would you play? Or is football better?