FIFA launched AI-powered cameras to track offsides, the MLB is testing the idea of robot umpires with automated strike zones, and the U.S. Open currently tracks outs with electronic line-calling on every court. Robots in black and white stripes are clearly around the corner.
It's akin to a live version of instant replay, but with job losses. Sports are awash in missed calls and perceived biases and it seems like more time is spent reviewing a call than playing the game. The idea is to speed up the play while increasing accuracy, not that any of that will matter when you miss half the game in line for a hot dog. In MLB, there won't be any metal robots standing behind home plate reflecting the sun in the pitcher's eye. Instead, the so-called Automated Ball-Strike System involves sensors tracking the ball's position and relaying the call to the umpire via headphones, who still gets to stand there and look like he's doing the work. “I knew that was a strike,” he'd probably be thinking. In tennis the ball also moves fast, and at the U.S. Open a system called Hawk-Eye Live electronically tracks the ball and announces the calls with recorded human voices that shout “out,” “fault” and “foot fault,” though the tennis lifeguard still has the ability to say, “Quiet please.”
It remains to be seen whether such changes speeds up gameplay, improves call accuracy, and makes it easier for refs to walk to their cars without getting hit with an empty Coors can. My real concern is the fans. We often complain after a loss about wanting more objectivity and exactness in referring, but as we get closer to inscrutable AI calls, we may miss that inexact fog that makes refereeing fun to complain about.
Whether it's life or sports, everyone needs a reason for losing beyond just sucking. We want to feel as if we noticed something the ref didn't, as if we're part of it, because if some guy eating nachos on his sofa at home noticed a ball over the line that the ref didn't, it means he's qualified to manage a team, right? Missed calls are the beginning of stories we tell ourselves, a mythology of speculation that grows out of what could’ve been, of upsets and interrupted dynasties and forgotten cities finding worth through championships. Added to the wonder is the soothing victimization that comes with the phrase “The refs fucked us again,” the sense that the league didn't want you to win and the world isn't fair. But at least we have our integrity.
A perfect system of AI refs: every flag tossed on the football field would belong there, every free throw in the NBA justified, every penalty box in the NHL filled with the right amount of players. It would end the rhetoric and what if's and all the whining that drives every sports talk radio show in the country. The airwaves would go silent, and the time between an on-field call and a fan's “Come on!” virtually nonexistent. Not being able to complain —is there anything worse?
Granted, we're nowhere near Data in a ref's uniform. For the moment AI is merely handling the more simplistic types of calls that relate to the limits of the human eye. It’ll be years before a cyborg recognizes an NBA flop and calls unsportsmanlike conduct, or a tin man on skates knows the fineries of a distinct kicking motion in an NHL crease. Will AI ever be able to see the infraction before the retaliation? Can it discern the intent to injure? Can it ever know what's in an athlete's heart?
Even if one day the perfect mechanical referee is created, we can take solace in the hope that the AI may wind up displaying the same biases that current AI chat programs do based on the biased people who created them. At least then a fan will be able to say, “Whatever. That ref was programmed to hate Philly.”