Human VS. Machine - BOWLING

This week on Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings (Jeopardy! record holder with 74 wins) and Brad Rutter (Jeopardy! all time biggest money winner) will take on Watson, an IBM computer designed to compete on the game show. The spirit of human vs. technology is not limited to trivia. Back in Oct. 2010 Pro Bowler Chris Barnes took on bowling Robot, EARL to see whether technology could dominate over humans in sports.

EARL (Enhanced Automated Robotic Launcher) is a robot with capabilities to throw the ball down the lane from 10-24mph and spin from 50 to 900 rpm. Additionally the ball may be gripped different ways and at different angles to adjust the throw. The technology behind EARL involves hydraulics, air pressure and electronics. According to Neil Stremmel, the managing director of the United States Bowling Congress, "[EARL]'s able to throw a ball to within a tenth of a mile an hour, a third of a board down the lane, more consistent and more accurate than any human bowler." (Huffington Post)

EARL was created to help set official game rules and to test/design bowling balls, lanes and pins at a consistency that is not achievable by humans. Consistency however does not necessarily mean a better bowler and the world needed to know: are machines really better than humans at sports? The face-off between Barnes and EARL indicates that humans still have the edge over machines…at least in the bowling alley. In a triumph for the human race, Barnes defeated EARL 259-209.



The reason man beats machine? EARL’s consistency caused it to throw the ball in exactly the same spot each time, meaning the oil-slicked lanes created a pattern. It actually was EARL’s pin-point regularity that caused its defeat. It turns out humans can better adjust for the changing lane conditions than machines. Regardless of the outcome on Jeopardy! this week, the world knows at least one arena where man dominates machine. REF. huffingtonpost.com, jeopardy.com, robaid.com, sportstechreview.com,