Slashdot Mirror
Should Professional Sports Switch To Robot Referees? (hpe.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Esther Schindler writes: Everyone who watches sports spends some amount of time yelling at the umpire or sports referee. For the past few years we've also been shouting, "Replace that ump with a robot!"
But is it technically feasible? Is the current level of AI and robotics tech up to the job? This article starts with the assumption that someone seriously wants to create a robot umpire or sports referee and then evaluates whether it possible to build an accurate and trustworthy augmented reality solution today.
The article points out that professional tennis matches already apply AI to high-definition video feeds from up to six different cameras to dispense binding judgments on whether a ball was in or out. At the same time, not every officiating decision in every sport is so easily automated, since AI "can't yet handle calls that hinge on judgment of players' intent."
But there's a larger question: do we really want to remove those human watchers from our sports? "Sports is a human activity," argues a professor of social sciences at Cardiff University in Wales, suggesting that human officials continue a cultural tradition which reminds us of who we are. "Humans are imperfect; that's OK."
What do Slashdot's readers think? Should professional sports switch to robot referees?
But is it technically feasible? Is the current level of AI and robotics tech up to the job? This article starts with the assumption that someone seriously wants to create a robot umpire or sports referee and then evaluates whether it possible to build an accurate and trustworthy augmented reality solution today.
The article points out that professional tennis matches already apply AI to high-definition video feeds from up to six different cameras to dispense binding judgments on whether a ball was in or out. At the same time, not every officiating decision in every sport is so easily automated, since AI "can't yet handle calls that hinge on judgment of players' intent."
But there's a larger question: do we really want to remove those human watchers from our sports? "Sports is a human activity," argues a professor of social sciences at Cardiff University in Wales, suggesting that human officials continue a cultural tradition which reminds us of who we are. "Humans are imperfect; that's OK."
What do Slashdot's readers think? Should professional sports switch to robot referees?
Humans might be imperfect, and that's fine. But humans can also be bribed, and that's not fine. When tens of millions of dollars are in play, a referee can cae in to the promise of richness and make a "mistake".
Furthermore, some sports do have certain mathematical rules where the referee can be successfully replaced by automation (not AI, stop using that term, AI doesn't exist yet). For example, in soccer, an automated system can successfully determine whether the ball passed the goal line or not.
I say, replace what can successfully be replaced and leave the referee to decide in all other cases. Oh and we should stop perceiving automation as the enemy, rather we should look at merging the two (humans and automation) from a collaboration perspective. As a matter of fact I am seeing this right these days during the Football World Cup 2018 (the one you call soccer), where video systems are helping the referee make the right choice in deciding penalties.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I asked my fembot and she said the robot referees really get her hot.
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half the fun of watching sports is yelling at the ref. It's not fun yelling at a machine. Hell, we don't need robots, we've had instant replay for decades. Bad ref calls are still a thing because we want them to be.
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Yes. They should switch to robot referees. And robot players. To entertain their robot viewers.
Let's talk when we have something close to AGI, something which is capable of thinking.
Right now we have pretty stupid and quite rigid algorithms which require tons of coding, colossal amounts of data to be trained, don't take any human conventions into account (unless they are again hard-coded into), and then these algos cannot understand, generalize, think, doubt and make rational conclusions. While the AI hype is extremely strong (because it attracts a lot of capital and venture capitalists aren't smart enough to see the lies), we have no actual intelligence.
TLDR: Hell, no. Ask in a 100 years. Referees could absolutely use the help of video recordings though.
>For the past few years we've also been shouting, "Replace that ump with a robot!"
no. nope. nada. this is something that literally no one has ever shouted.
Consider this bit of conventional wisdom about the NFL: "The holding rule for offensive linemen is violated on every play." Instead of the rule as written, there is something else that is actually enforced. And the enforced rule is a whole lot more complicated. Grabbing the opponent's jersey is allowed if you don't extend your arm too much. If the opponent doesn't attempt to pull away far enough that the held jersey obviously stretches. And a lot more exceptions.
Don't even get me started on the NBA. An AI referee that called the rules as written would foul out the entire lineup for both teams in the first quarter.
Soccer for instance
- human referee for a long time (had no other choice)
- human referee (video reluctance) (1990~2015)
- human referee with video help (2016~)
- human referee with video help (AI reluctance) (2020~)
- human referee with AI help (2024~)
- AI referee (no other choice, way better than human) (2028~)
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No.. human referees are part of the game.
But they need to start using video. They can have an A.I. backup and if it contradicts the humans they should consider it's input.
With billions of dollars at stake, corruption of the sport is inevitable. And it only takes one veritably corrupt referee in a major game to ruin the sport with a huge scandal.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
No
Will come a time when AI is way better than humans at almost anything. Get used to it.
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Next question, please.
Baseball is a perfect example where this is completely feasible. Calling balls vs. strikes when the batter doesn't swing is a matter of where exactly the ball is. Umpires are notoriously inaccurate. The 538 even did a story showing that they biased their calls in favor of ending games that went into extra innings.
But the issue here isn't fairness or doing what is right. Ultimately professional sports are businesses. And they're not in the business of fair games, they're in the entertainment business. Right now, they won't switch to computers because the think it would reduce fan engagement. If fans get fed up with the consistent bad calls, then they'll switch. So when you hear arguments about "human factor," tradition, and fairness, it's all just a smokescreen for what will keep the most fans watching the games.
I'm not a sports fan, but I would prefer whatever solution results in games being decided based on the players, not the referees, and I see that as shifting to more computers. I expect it's just a matter of time before the majority of fans agrees and they make the change.
Human referees might have been ok in the age of wooden rackets etc but I am all in favor of electronic referees now that games are played in high-speed. When will the stupid game auths and audiences realize this ? Humans are so unreliable when it comes to hi-speed decisions based on accuracy.
Yes, because when AI gets to that level, humans will have disappeared. Robots referees will referee robots players.
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Only if we replace the referees with those South Korean "Aliens" sentry guns. (yes those are actually real things...it's also how AEGIS works, that's the 'networked' version with IFF)
Hell, we don't need robots, we've had instant replay for decades.
In baseball, instant replay adds interminable delays to a game many people already think takes too long. Additionally, the circumstances under which it can be invoked are quite limited - you can’t challenge ball/strike calls, for instance. And none of it actually involves tech, unless you refer to humans looking at multiple camera angle views and making a decision based on what they’ve seen as “tech”.
I’m willing to put up with human imperfection, but I’d also be fine if MLB suddenly decided it was going to automate ball/strike calls. The tech is already in place for that. But the current challenge-invoked rules are the worst of both worlds, in my opinion.
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Baseball could use cameras or other tech to judge balls/strikes but other parts of the game wouldn't work. On a double-play, the second baseman isn't required to touch the base before throwing to first.
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Bender: You humans are so scared of a little robot competition you won't even let us on the field.
Fry: What are you talking about? There's all kinds of robots down there.
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Fry: Eleven?
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apply AI to
The chiropractors of CS.... the "AI appliers".
The old school solution of "have you tried turning it ON and OFF" has finally transformed into "have you tried AI"
I've been talking about this a lot lately-- the refereeing in the NBA attracts a lot of complaints.
Right now there's just way too much stuff for referees to look for, at once. There are some things that computers could do very well (3 seconds in the key, lane violations, calling player/ball in/out of bounds, backcourt violation, midcourt 8 second timer). This would free up referees to look for traveling, off-ball contact, etc, so that the overall quality of officiating could improve.
There's not much point to automating ball and strike since the machine isn't going to be able to decide if the batsman went around (since there is no hard and fast rule for that, it's left to the umpire's discretion). None of the systems I have seen can decide between a swinging strike and a foul tip. Also never seen anything that can call hit by pitch or decide if the batsman tried to avoid it or leaned in and took the hit.
There's a saying in American football that you could probably call holding on every play. It's just about true, just watch slo-motion replays. Refs can't see everything all the time*, so most holding isn't called. It's part of the game. With robot refs there would be a flag thrown on just about every play and the game would grind to a halt.
*It's hard to see around or through players who are the size of giants, plus the field has a crown so it's hard to see from one sideline to the other. Ever play the game? You know what I mean.
Nobody goes to a sporting event see umpires or referees. The umps are there, like police, as a necessary evil to ensure rules are followed.
If the umpire gets every call correct he has not made the game better. But every call he gets wrong means the outcome is being decided by something other than the competing players. That diminishes the game.
The best way to get rid of mistakes is to use a system that's consistent. At some point the robots will be more consistent than the humans.
n/t
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Entertainment, you know. Even if a lot of $ is involved, sports are fundamentally about humans performing, under performing, making errors, screwing up, cheating, etc. Let's just call the referee another yet another part of that.
If you have money riding on a game, that's on you. The outcome is always subject to the fickle finger of fate.
If it's corruption of the referee you're worried about, what about corrupt players, management, etc? Make them into robots, too?
Grading umpires against a machine after the game has actually resulted in the strike zone being close to rulebook and much more accurate. That seems to be a reasonable step, but I'm not so sure we would see much improvement if the machine actually made the calls in game. I'm sure they are quite accurate in deciding if it was over the plate, but the upper and lower bounds of the zone vary from batsman to batsman.
Sports with robots as players have already arrived both physically and virtually. The E-Sports industry is expected to surpass the $1 billion income mark next year. Though not autonomous or physical robots, this is still virtual robotics. And their viewership routinely surpasses professional sports.
Sports have long been a reflection of military activities. If we developed new sports to reflect the current battlefield, wouldn't they have to use robotics? Drones are robots and critical on the modern battlefield. Guided missiles are robots. Homing missiles are more advanced robots. There is so much automation going on in planes (many of which can't be flown without a computer to stabilize them) and tanks these days that they should be considered manned robots. Even a landmine is an autonomous mechanism that kills without command.
Also, with the introduction of a few sensors in the equipment that we probably should have anyway for safety reasons, big gains in the judgement accuracy of the systems can be made. It isn't fair to artificially limit the system to work with video just because we have to use eyes and ears.
Sports are meaningless. But they should replace cops, judges and politicians with AI as soon as it's possible.
Completely right, which (former) soccer player is called "The Hand of God" and why ...
If everything in such "games" (aka sport, but focusing on the meaning of game) would be "strikt" ... why would you watch something like olympic ice dancing or even tennis?
Where do you draw the line between a foul and "well it was ok" ... an arbiter is "forming the game", reacting on the over all "fairness" or "unfairness", a foul that was "ok" in the first half of the game might be "not ok" in the second half because the arbiter wants to calm down the players ... and that again is a point for discussion for the watchers, so more stuff to talk about.
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FTFA
Anything judged by people instead of being measured (time, distance, counts, yes/no) should be out of The Olympics. End of conversation.
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In boxing intent is not an issue. An accidental foul and a deliberate foul are handled the same way. But having multiple cams at different angles would be wonderful and if AI can be used to detect punches as will as fouls a much higher quality decision can be made. As it stands there are severely corrupt actions created by the judges in matches. They hide under the notion that boxing is subjective which is nonsense. Judges tend to see what they want to see for various reasons.
Weren't the fans replaced with robots decades ago?
But many sports have too much subjective determination involved to remove human referees.
As an engineer, that seems to me to be a problem with the sports' design, not the refereeing. Replace these faulty sports with ones that have unambiguous design and repeatable decisions.
Leave the umpires/referees to deal with things like breaking up fights and provide cue extenders.
They should go the other way and totally re-introduce the random human element by banning instant replay.
I was just thinking about this while watching the (tennis) final at Queen's Club. Why should we care so much about a game that we have to apply AI to rulings?
It all goes back to McEnroe's baby-tantrums in the 80's when a guy being paid big bucks to knock a ball about a lawn with no risk to himself whatsoever demanded that he be treated as some sort of superhero.
Screw that. It's just a game - dry your eyes and get on with it, or we'll send you down a Chilean mine for minimum pay and you can see if you can dig up a sense of fucking proportion.
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I feel about the same way for spectator sports. But I think I know the way they will die, at least televised ones: CGI sports.
With 1000s of hours of video for any specific team there's more than enough raw material to generate a CGI version of any team playing any other team. With a high-quality simulation of teams and players it would be possible to orchestrate any outcome. More important, it would be possible to not just arrange a game to have team A or team B win but to build up the tension with one barely defeating the other in the final seconds, or a total blowout.
The markets for fantasy sports and e-sports together show that human players in an actual game are not necessary to have an audience.
Sports Illustrated reports the highest grossing sports films:
1. The Blind Side: $256million
2. The Waterboy: $162million
3. The Longest Yard (2005): $158million
4. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby: $148million
5. Rocky IV: $128million
6. Rocky III: $124million
7. Seabiscuit: $120million
8. Blades of Glory: $119million
9. Remember the Titans: $116million
10. Unbroken: $115million
This suggests there's already plenty of money to be made in made-up sports. With the mechanics in place, a group of writers/choreographers could program a whole season.
As soon as they also start playing the sports.
Will come a time when AI is way better than humans at almost anything. Get used to it.
AI? Automated Industry? :p
Who the hell comes up with this shit? So-called self-driving cars are a disaster, you still can't program a robot to fold laundry correctly, and some moron wants to have a robot officiate over sporting events? People are dumb and getting dumber all the time. Enough of this 'robot' and 'AI' meme bullshit already.
That still leaves bunts.
But there will be a lot of resistance to nailing the rules down for the sake of the machines. More than other professional sports, baseball is about judgement calls. When the unexpected happens due to imperfections in the field or just unlikely random events, the rules actually call for the umpire to decide what would most likely have happened without the odd event and declare that to be the result of the play.
Consider, the ground rule double is nothing more than the observation that if the ball takes a hop deep in the outfield and caroms off the top of the wall, the batsman will get a double practically every time. The Home run is likewise a recognition that if the ball goes over the fence and into the weeds, everyone will get home before the ball can be thrown back in.
Baseball doesn't moan and groan about every field being a bit different, it celebrates it.
There is a third option. Use a robot to augment a human ref. One option would be to have the robot evaluate the referee's performance. If a referee is performing poorly, they get taken out of the game.
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