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Is speedcubing ultimately doomed?

bundat

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Another example: Tour de France is still popular and tiring etc...although we have motorbikes.
Sports have to follow rules and if technology makes those rules old-fashioned most people will just enjoy the sport with the old-fashioned rules anyway

This.

Computers would require interfacing (using a keyboard/mouse, touching a touch screen, mentally triggering an implant).
As long as it is detectable, it would be logical to ban any form of interfacing with mental implants on the stage. Any mental implant activity detected once the cube is revealed is instant dq.

External tools that unfairly assist the solve are banned, so if they went all that way in banning stickerless cubes in comp, using mental implants are even worse, like using skates in a marathon lol, and would certainly be banned. Since this is no different than lugging your laptop on stage during the solve and firing up cube explorer, except that nobody can see your laptop lol.

The issue now would be detectability.
(click spoiler for a possible future scenario)
Usually, in such technologies, detectability is hard to conceal, due to the nature of control (interfacing via some form of communication, which is usually the vector of attack in activities such as wiretapping/eavesdropping/keylogging/cardskimming etc). There would probably be technology developed to hide this (encryption, detection concealment devices, etc), but then these themselves are probably also detectable in their own right. I can forsee many security layers piling up from this, and other security issues, needing security experts that are up-to-date in the latest anonimity/mental encryption trends/technologies. They could probably form an authoritative body, like a "World Mental Sports Authenticity Enforcement Commitee", and this WMSAEC can conduct inspections on mental games like chess, cubing, or even things like exams (unless these are considered obsolete, unless you are testing practical application of knowledge), enforcing the authenticity of the mental feat by discounting any possible mental implant usage. Sorta like testing athletes for steroids.

-----

Let's say society evolves such that memorization is obsolete, and everyone relies on their implants for remembering things, since it is 100% reliable memory storage with instant recall. Some people will argue that they have the cube algs stored in implant, and need to activate it to recall them.

Sorry, but you'll have to do it the old fashioned way, and memorize the alg. It's like physical training for sports. It's not really necessary to be physically strong and fast with all the technologies we have, but that's how you compete in that sport, physically without using any tech. So mental sports should also have the same treatment.
 
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Mike Hughey

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I am not so sure about that. Please explain how this would make Feliks/Mats do a sub 5.

Sorry, I was specifically referring to 3x3x3 BLD here - I could be sub-45 at 3x3x3 BLD as described; I was suggesting that, with tweaking, this could get someone like Marcell or Alejandro sub-20 BLD. As for speedsolving, it would require a much better interface and a lot more tweaking, I think, to get someone actually sub-5.

As for predictions that this won't happen until next century, I honestly don't expect the technology to become quality any time soon. (A logical starting goal might be to try to duplicate Google Glass, but implanted, so the display superimposes itself on your brain's vision field and audio from the device mixes in with your true audio. I'm saying I suspect it will be quite a while before we get that - perhaps even 22nd century or maybe even later if some of it becomes too difficult for us to figure out.) But I'm fascinated that even rudimentary experiments could actually become useful in certain small fields (including blindsolving).

And Chris, yes - it seems like a form of "telepathy" shouldn't be all that hard to do, if we can work out a "pipe" large enough for significant communication. It seems like right now the early experiments are focusing on replacing some lost or atrophied capability, so using thoughts you'd normally use to move your hand to trigger an artificial hand to do the same, etc. In order to communicate like this comfortably, we'd have to find a way to send stimuli to a computer rapidly that wouldn't require destroying some capability we already have - I think we don't understand what we're doing yet enough to even know how difficult or easy that might be. Except that a few crazy experimenters might very well choose to give up some capability we all take for granted, like use of an arm, to get this ability soon, which is an interesting, scary, and morally challenging idea.

To imagine relatively low-tech telepathy, imagine that you have a hand that has been removed and you are able to interface with your arm in a way that allows you to use an artificial hand. Now you simply replace the artificial hand with a detector, try to form letters in the deaf alphabet to spell out words, and transmit that to someone else's cochlear implant that reads the words to the other person's brain. Voilà - telepathy. Not very good telepathy, though, since it would take a lot of work and time to transmit even a short message, but the rest then is just optimization, right? :)
 
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qqwref

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This scenario bears a great deal of similarity to the issues faced by performance-enhancing drugs in traditional athletics. I really think that once this development happens we will just have to start explicitly banning mental implants (and Google Glass-type devices) in all cubing competitions, and perhaps annulling results if someone gets past our detectors and is then proven to be using an implant. It's certainly not interesting to practice speedcubing when a great deal of it is done for you automatically.
 

Wassili

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What if you have a brain implant, but you use it for a completely different reason than speedcubing? I guess you would need a license of some sorts, but I still don't think that would provide enough proof.
 

qqwref

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Nope, competitive speedcubing would only be for implant-free people. Just like how powerlifting is only for people who don't take steroids for medical reasons - or how marathon running is only for people who don't have leg injuries confining them to wheelchairs (since some wheelchairs are significantly faster than running).

The only way implants would be acceptable would be if you could prove they have no effect on your cubing. But indeed, how could you, without letting someone look inside your thoughts and analyze the detailed workings of your brain? An implant might provide enhanced attention or pattern recognition, or improve memory even without having the kind of BLD effect Mike Hughey proposed, or just improve the efficiency of the rest of the brain in an unnatural way. If you can't know for sure whether someone is cheating or not, it's not fair to the "natural" cubers to give the benefit of the doubt.
 

Toquinha1977

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Interesting and worthy of discussion, even though the technology is pretty far off. Even today, it's entirely possible that a person with a small hidden ear piece could be receiving instructions from someone viewing remotely (via hidden camera), essentially making it a team BLD solve. Heck, given that people generally provide their own blindfolds, it wouldn't be too hard to build something with a small video screen, receiving video feed from a camera hidden in a shirt button. You wouldn't even need an invasive brain implant for that.

As for an brain implant camera that saves an image, this would be of limited use to a solver unless they actually knew how to solve it (ie: the image wouldn't keep changing with the cube). If the user was able to install software to automatically generate a God's algorithm, then we're talking. If the devices can be controlled with thought, then they could be accessed without detection.

However, I don't see this being an issue as far as competitive speedsolving is concerned. Using the scenarios I mentioned in the first paragraph, there isn't any reason why this should be a problem right now. But when we're already seeing sub-30 times in BLD, is that even necessary? On top of that, record beating times are subject to scrutiny and deconstruction, and if the solve was determined to use a method that can't be adequately explained by the solver (ie: it doesn't follow an established method like 3OP), it'd be disqualified.

Also, Rubik's Cube solving isn't exactly lucrative. While technology gets cheaper with mass production, given the price of healthcare (especially for voluntary procedures), $500 won at an the world's competition isn't going to go very far in recouping expenses, which include not only the electronics, but the maintenance (it's a foreign implant, which your body will try to reject, and you'll have a buildup of scar tissue that would need to be periodically removed).
 

CubezUBR

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to be honest, with the advance of technology (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDtOg4UPVYw), will soon destroy many sport/hobbies, just think about brain implants that could help. but would anybody use them? whats the point? winning a comp because of a computer is like getting a f2l+oll+pll skip, it requres no skill and is not worth anything. they should create catagories if something like this happens: winners for fakes and winners for real people
 

Renslay

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This whole conversation reminds me of something... Ah, there you are:

Doc: ...but in the future, we don't need horses. We have horseless carriages called auto-mo-biles.

An Old Timer chuckles.

Old Timer: If everybody's got one of these automo-whatsits, does anybody walk or run anymore?

Doc: Of course they run. But for recreation, for fun.

Old Timer: Run for fun? Ha-ha, what the hell kind of fun is that?

Another Old Timer laughs hysterically.
 

LNZ

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I do believe that solving 3x3x3 cubes had it peak in the early 1980's.

Although the scene has made a major come back with much more diversity of puzzles to solve, it will never reach the heights it was in the early 1980's.

So from this, this interest (to some) will live on in some capacity, but don't expect miracles!
 

BluShehn

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This idea scares me, haha. But This is where I think technology shouldn't replace certain everyday items of our lives, such as memorization skills. I hope Speedcubing doesn't die off just because of a brain implant that allows for a thought out execution algorithm during inspection. If we let the technology do the work for us, we will never know what it's like to do it ourselves, as human beings.
 

BillyRain

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Nope, competitive speedcubing would only be for implant-free people. Just like how powerlifting is only for people who don't take steroids for medical reasons - or how marathon running is only for people who don't have leg injuries confining them to wheelchairs (since some wheelchairs are significantly faster than running).

The only way implants would be acceptable would be if you could prove they have no effect on your cubing. But indeed, how could you, without letting someone look inside your thoughts and analyze the detailed workings of your brain? An implant might provide enhanced attention or pattern recognition, or improve memory even without having the kind of BLD effect Mike Hughey proposed, or just improve the efficiency of the rest of the brain in an unnatural way. If you can't know for sure whether someone is cheating or not, it's not fair to the "natural" cubers to give the benefit of the doubt.

Yep. Implants would be treated in exactly the same way as a performance enhancing drug and so would be against regulations.

So no, speedcubing isn't going to be wiped out when we all become terminators.
 

Dene

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You guys are all wasting your time thinking about this. The singularity and the rise of the machines will come first, and we'll all be dead.
 

AvGalen

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This whole conversation reminds me of something... Ah, there you are:

That made me laugh so hard that I needed to make up an excuse for my fellow coworkers. My excuse was to let them read it as well.

I do believe that solving 3x3x3 cubes had it peak in the early 1980's.

Playing with it certainly. Solving it (with the help of books and newspapers) maybe. Speedsolving it....peaking the last few years thanks to the internet and WCA

So no, speedcubing isn't going to be wiped out when we all become terminators.

That is discrimination. Speedcubing should be for everyone, also for terminators. I would love to see a video of the Michael Halczuk terminator when he gets a pop. Then again, that might just be how it all got started

You guys are all wasting your time thinking about this. The singularity and the rise of the machines will come first, and we'll all be inside the matrix.

There, fixed that for you
 

legoanimate98

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It might not kill speedcubing, it could just change it. There are plenty of cube simulators that you can use if you have a computer, but I never do because I don't feel like learning how to work them. With these implants, cubing could happen completely mentally and you could turn a digital cube with your mind. It would make cubing more focused on methods and recognition and less on hardware and turning speed. I personally think that it would make competitions interesting for a while, but I would probably stop competing because there would no longer be a social aspect to cubing.
 
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