Speedgate Launches As The World's First AI Invented Sport

Artificial intelligence has the potential to change lots of things (in good ways) for humanity. Some people, notably Elon Musk, fear an AI arms race could lead to another world war. AI has shown that it is capable of beating humans in games that humans have mastered over many years, such as Google's AlphaGo AI defeating Go world champion Lee Sedol. Now, AI has invented an entirely new sport using data from 400 existing sports.

The new sport is called Speedgate, and it was created after design agency AKQA feed the AI neural network data on 400 existing sports. The AI came up with some wacky ideas for sports; one of them was exploding Frisbees making it a good thing that the AI can't force us to play the sports it devised. The team at AKQA took the list of new sports the AI spit out and whittled it down to three that had eligible characteristics, such as not dying during play.

Those three reaming sports were play tested, and the winner was Speedgate. The AI was also allowed to generate the logo and motto for the sport; the motto is "face the ball to be the ball to be above the ball." Speedgate was created as an exercise for Design Week, but it could become an intermural sport for those wanting to bow to their AI overlords straight away.

AKQA is talking to the Oregon Sports Authority about Speedgate, and an intermural league may happen this summer. Essentially, players have to kick a ball through a center gate to unlock gates at the ends of the field to score points. Those wanting to try out Speedgate for themselves can see the full rules and all the details at the Playspeedgate.org website.