VIDEO: AI-EQUIPPED ROBOT SHOOTS HOOPS BETTER THAN THE PROS

The Toyota Engineering Society has created an android robot that scores baskets better than professional basketball players. It goes by the name of CUE, the robot reportedly uses artificial intelligence to learn to shoot better than players from Japanese B League team, Alvark Tokyo. And it can, apparently, shoot nearly 100% accuracy at short distances.

The research team, which is sponsored by Toyota, has more or less adopted CUE, assigning it a number 70 jersey and the position of shooting guard. The robot does not move on its own, so it is unlikely for it to appear in any B League team, just yet. The robot is 190 cm tall.

According to a report in The Asahi Shimbun and Newsweek, the basketball-robot uses artificial intelligence to learn to make better shots, having practised some 200,000 times. Apparently, the 17 engineers that work with CUE, were inspired by Sakuragi Hanamichi, a protagonist of the manga, Slam Dunk. Remarkably, the team of engineers had no robotics experience before building CUE.

You can see the video of the robot in action below.