Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

How Sports Commentaries Can Speed Up AI Development (thestack.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the calling-the-game dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In an effort to shorten the annotation phase prior to neural network learning, Indian researchers are using commentaries intended for human viewers to help machines understand the meaning of action in cricket. The researchers suggest that closed-caption movie commentaries, as well as other types of usefully descriptive pre-existing commentaries could continue to prove helpful in teaching artificial intelligence the meaning of what it is seeing on screen.

40 comments

  1. Cricket is intended for humans? by umafuckit · · Score: 1

    I don't understand the cricket commentary intended for human viewers. How the fuck is a machine going to do it? See? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    --
    soylentnews.org
    1. Re:Cricket is intended for humans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      shut the fuck up

    2. Re:Cricket is intended for humans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's wrong with that video? He took out his leg stump - he's out. Simple.

      Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not a good sport. Don't be envious because you left the empire before you got the good stuff.

    3. Re:Cricket is intended for humans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Empire? What empire?

    4. Re: Cricket is intended for humans? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The first international cricket match was USA versus Canada

  2. Does not compute by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    I think there's some confusion here. Sport, action and cricket in the same topic? Somebody made a mistake somewhere.

    1. Re:Does not compute by Coisiche · · Score: 1

      Indeed. The anonymous reader has compromised their anonymity; all that is required is identifying the single address in the world where cricket is associated with sport and action.

    2. Re:Does not compute by peragrin · · Score: 1

      it gets better. They think closed captioning actually equals the scene on the screen.

      Apparently they have never watched a movie with closed captioning or subtitles before. I have not yet seen one that was even 70% accurate to what was actually said, or done.

      Part of that is simple wording you can't write out every line of dialog as fast as it is said. So they chop up the dialog to make it fit in the time they have. per scene.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    3. Re:Does not compute by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      it gets better (or worse) with anime (on netflix at least).

      the words being spoken and the captions are so different as to be two different scripts for the same visuals. The two are wildly disparate at times.

      I think they use machine translation to provide the script for one or the other.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    4. Re:Does not compute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I knew nothing about Cricket so I figured I'd watch a bunch on the internet. This went on for about a month. I still don't know very much about it.

  3. Art should be considered as well. by kav2k · · Score: 1

    Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

  4. Sports commentaries? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    I can't speak to cricket, but I watch a fair bit of American football and (especially) baseball. A good bit of the commentary seems to have very little to do with what's actually happening on the screen - so I'm not sure whether analyzing that will help or hurt! Perhaps adding a pre-filter so anything said by the "color guy" is blanked out before import would be beneficial.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think they should use radio broadcasts of the sporting event on top of the video. That would probably be a much closer approximation.

    2. Re:Sports commentaries? by Michael+Woodhams · · Score: 1

      OK, that is a start at understanding the nature of cricket commentary. Now imagine how relevant the commentary would be if instead of 90 minutes (or whatever it is) they had to keep talking for five days.

      --
      Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
    3. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a part time cricket fan, I enjoy the commentary, but most of it isn't relevant.

      A lot of it is either Bumble talking amusing rubbish, pigeons on the pitch, look at that fancy dress, etc, between overs.

    4. Re:Sports commentaries? by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Maybe you should watch something in which there's enough action so the commentators don't have to fill massive amounts of time without action with inane chatter.

      American football is so slow. The 40 or 45 seconds to get a play started is too long (Canadian football is 20 seconds and makes for a faster game). The four downs encourages a running game because it's a safe play and you can normally get a couple of yards so it's a quick running play followed by a time out to reset the ball and then almost 40 seconds to start the next play. I've watched a few Super Bowls and it's terrible how long they take to play. Especially the last couple of minutes. The four downs allows teams to throw the ball away to stop the clock. It seems like the last two minutes of a game can take a half hour to play with the time outs and other ways to manipulate the clock. None of it is illegal but it makes for an extremely boring game.

      And then there's baseball. Watching someone throw a ball every minute or so is a recipe for having the commentary being very little to do about the game. Not that cricket is a whole lot better but at least they change the bowler (pitcher) on a regular basis so it's not always the same person throwing for the team.

    5. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cricket is an excellent lazy day sport. Football ( soccer ) or Rugby if you want to give your full attention for 90/80 minutes. They suit different niches.

      In cricket, every ball is important because a good bowler works the batsman, taking all 6 balls to try to force him into a mistake. It's very tactical and a different type of sport to football/rugby. I get the impression of baseball that every ball is an attempt to get the guy out, with no attempt to use multiple throws to tease the batsman into a mistake.

    6. Re: Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the UK a large proportion of the commentary is related to the quality of cake that has been sent to the commentators to the extent that action has been missed.

      "The batsman's Holding; the bowler's Willey"

    7. Re:Sports commentaries? by xSander · · Score: 1

      American football is so slow.

      You know what really makes American football slow? The commercial breaks. Between drives, timeouts, quarters and kickoffs there are almost always 2 minutes of commercial time. I live in Europe, so I have to record the late games. That enables me to skip all those breaks with a few button presses every 10 minutes or so.

      The four downs encourages a running game because it's a safe play and you can normally get a couple of yards so it's a quick running play followed by a time out to reset the ball and then almost 40 seconds to start the next play.

      Not quite. The clock only gets stopped when a player runs out of bounds, otherwise it keeps running, plus the 40-second play clock starts immediately. There are a few other situations where the clock gets stopped, but that has nothing to do with the kind of play you are executing.

      I've watched a few Super Bowls and it's terrible how long they take to play. Especially the last couple of minutes. The four downs allows teams to throw the ball away to stop the clock. It seems like the last two minutes of a game can take a half hour to play with the time outs and other ways to manipulate the clock. None of it is illegal but it makes for an extremely boring game.

      Again, not quite. They don't "throw the ball away to stop the clock". That would get them nowhere. Time gets stopped when the pass is incomplete or the ball carrier runs out of bounds. It is true though that the last 2 minutes can take up 30 minutes. That's because both teams try to save the timeouts for precisely those last 2 minutes. If a team has no timeouts left or wants to save one, the quarterback can throw the ball into the ground right behind his center ("spiking") to stop the clock as well. Assessing penalties stop the clock temporarily, too.

    8. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      THIS.

    9. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It depends on the format. It's been a long time since I listened, but test cricket commentary (5 day format) at least seemed to involve discussing what some seagulls were doing on the pitch, long anecdotes (some of which were even sport related), extended historical statistical analysis and the occasional update on the game. Maybe commentary for the short form versions (1 day, 20/20 or whatever) might be more cricket centric?

      Actually I don't mind cricket as far as sport goes. It doesn't seem to attract the same boof-heads that the various football codes do, and you can set the radio on in the background and follow the action while you do something more interesting. Not that I bother listening, but I won't leave the room if someone else does.

    10. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's that Ritchie?

    11. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would have been easier to say that you don't understand baseball.

    12. Re:Sports commentaries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The clocks stops more often for an incomplete pass than it does for a player running out of bounds. What is up with stupid people commenting? It also stops after punts, field goals, sacks, penalties, and more. Don't type. Read. Learn.

  5. Commentaries by Greger47 · · Score: 1

    But who teaches the AI the meaning of the commentaries?

    /greger

  6. Obligatory by pushing-robot · · Score: 1

    http://www.qwantz.com/index.ph...

    --
    How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
  7. Here's a challenge... by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

    I wonder what AI would make of this?

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    1. Re:Here's a challenge... by PPH · · Score: 1

      Or this?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  8. Ice hockey by tomhath · · Score: 1

    The only sport I can think of that's non-stop action is ice hockey. Even soccer and basketball are spurts of action between a lot of passing and positioning.

    But here's an interesting question. Would AI be able to make any sense of the commentator whispering while covering a golf tournament?

    1. Re:Ice hockey by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rugby Union is pretty much non-stop action.

    2. Re:Ice hockey by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      There's plenty of breaks in hockey. Oh, a really good game can get long stretches of action. But if it's a boring game then it can be almost as bad as baseball. Well, not that bad. But you can get into periods where there seems to be a lot of offsides, icings, penalties, and the goalie stops the puck right from the face-off which breaks up the play. And each time there's a line change. If it's the NHL there's a few commercial breaks each period.

      I haven't watched hockey in a while, though more for the inconsistency of the referees than the slowness of the game. I've seen a few games of the British ice hockey league and it was really good. Good end to end play. Not the elite players but they were playing because they loved to play and it showed. Kind of like why I prefer watching Canadian football.

    3. Re:Ice hockey by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 1

      Rugby is pretty good for action. I really like how they have the mic on the referee. I wish more sports, especially soccer, would do that.

    4. Re:Ice hockey by q4Fry · · Score: 1

      After an introduction to the Australian Football League, most other sports seem kind of boring. Ice hockey is second on my list for spectator interest, though.

  9. did this already with movies by WindBourne · · Score: 1

    The biggest issue that they will have, is that the text commentary does not always match the words that are spoken.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  10. fsdfsdf by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ssfdsfsdsdf

  11. By giving bad examples? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

    âoeAny time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points, they almost always win.â You see? Don't say things like that.

  12. You need comments in cricket by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And baseball - otherwise, you might fall asleep. Less facetiously, I have been watching football (the real thing, not the American rugby wannabee) with the sound turned off for years now, and I enjoy the game much better - not having to hear the roaring of the beasts and the platitudes uttered by the commentators makes it for a much more enjoyable experience. Thank goodness for the 'mute' button.

    1. Re:You need comments in cricket by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Handegg.

  13. What about the boring bits (ie 99% of the game) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What does the AI commentate about in the 15 minutes between each actual 'action' in the game I wonder?

  14. Slashdot comments for AI by MacDork · · Score: 1

    Is there any way to get a download of /. comments along with moderations? It could be an interesting way to train machine learning to recognize forum trolls.