At this week’s Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, for the first time since the first tournament in 1997, judges will be watching the players carefully, scrutinizing every spin, flip and grab.
But this year, another party will be informally weighed in: AI judges.
During a snowboarding superpipe competition, a video camera captures each athlete’s movements, artificial intelligence takes that information, and does what artificial intelligence does to provide a score for the routine.
This is a trial. Official scores and medals will be determined by humans as usual, but commentators and TV viewers will also see AI ratings.
X Games CEO and former freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom believes AI could be a potential “superpower” for judges. “I think humans make mistakes sometimes,” Bloom, who also played in the NFL, said in an interview. “Although AI is not infallible, especially in this early format, our goal is to provide this tool to judges so they can use it inside their booths.”
Technology is playing an increasingly important role in regulating professional sports. Electronic referees have largely replaced linesmen in tennis, cameras determine offsides down to the millimeter in soccer, and even Major League Baseball is testing automated strike zones.
However, judging and scoring sports like snowboarding remains the domain of humans. But in time, AI may become an important tool for judges not only in snowboarding, but also in many judged events such as diving, surfing, breakdancing, and more. An AI tool called a “judgment support system” is already being used by judges at world gymnastics championships.
In its AI Agenda published last year, the International Olympic Committee said that “AI can help reduce human bias in judging and officiating” and “can provide real-time analysis,” but that it is “not yet available.” “It’s in the early stages,” he admitted. That AI journey. ”
At this week’s X Games at Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain, AI will help judge the superpipe event, where snowboarders perform tricks from a U-shaped chute more than 20 feet tall. The AI tools used at X Games were developed in collaboration with Google Cloud. (Google co-founder Sergey Brin is a longtime friend of Bloom’s.)
This technology could be useful in other ways as well. This tool not only spits out scores, but also provides important information about individual snowboard runs. After all, how sure can they be when the announcers and judges instantly declare a limb or board shake to be, say, a triple 1620?
“Sometimes you get the trick wrong because it spins so fast,” Bloom said. “But this model is very accurate in that you can watch the video in slow, slow motion and say, ‘Oh, that was a Cab 1400.'”
Bloom said AI could also help train athletes by providing insight into how running, jumping and judging works. He pointed out that when he was an athlete, he wasn’t allowed to talk to the judges, so it was difficult to determine which tricks would get the highest scores. But the AI tools used by the X Games have the ability to “remember every run in history,” and will help athletes hone both their tricks and runs for higher scores, Bloom said. he said.
Bloom believes AI can play a role in many sports, “anywhere the eye can’t keep up with the athlete’s movements.” Juried sports have a particular reputation for occasionally producing false winners, with fans grumbling about judges giving them low scores.
AI has the potential to quell these complaints. (Or more likely turn it into a complaint about its awfully biased AI)
So will AI ever replace human judges and take their jobs completely?
“Personally, I don’t think so,” Bloom said. “But I think that if AI works with referees, it can bring more objectivity to a subjective sport. That’s what’s really important to me.”
“You know, sometimes we humans need help,” Bloom added. “If you can help me see the tricks better, see the landings more clearly, understand the judging framework better, I can use that as a resource when adjusting my scores. No, that’s pretty cool. That’s it.”
