Back on track, up at 5:30 and on the bike a little after six, feeling good. Did a 10-minute HIIT workout just before the bike ride. It got me warmed up nicely and ready to ride for an hour.
Today’s ride with Bernie went well. I’d say there were 30 or 40 people in the group. Your avatar moves forward based on how hard you are pedaling. However, the left and right turning is handled automatically by Zwift. When you pedal by another rider, if the avatars collide, the game decides if you go right or left around them. When you ride with more than 5 people in close formation, it becomes very curious to see how the game selects who goes where. It’s like watching a school of fish move through the ocean. I am curious if Zwift utilizes the randomness people generate using its system.
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic at the moment. Discussions about using it elevate how we will incorporate it into our lives. The Zwift Robo Pacer is not something I would necessarily consider artificial intelligence. You don’t interact with it beyond the avatar collision avoidance system. It is set to ride a specific tempo, which it holds for the most part. However, it does adjust its tempo based on climbing or descending.
As far as I understand, this is not artificial intelligence but just a programmatic algorithm for adjusting the robot to different gradients. However, to a non-technical person, it might seem like the robot is intelligently adapting to the incline or descent. This is where, maybe, the dangers or concerns of AI come into play. Understanding how susceptible people are to being tricked into thinking something is intelligent when it is just acting intelligent.
It all goes back to our liberal arts education, learning to analyze and think for ourselves.
Leave a Reply