Sadly for ‘Curly’, the curling-playing robot, it wasn’t his time for triumph on Thursday, when the artificial intelligence (AI) machine lost a game to his human competitors in the South Korean city of Icheon. The Ministry of Science and ICT hosted the competition between two robots, both named Curly, and a team of their human counterparts. Despite losing, both robots showed signs of being able to formulate strategy and to showcase evolving levels of skill.