Baseball Players Want Robots To Be Their Umps (technologyreview.com)

The sports world has been dealing with the human error of referees and umpires for decades -- it's pretty much tradition at this point. But with technology that can assess the game more accurately, some athletes are ready to push the people calling balls and strikes off the field in favor of technology. From a report: On Tuesday, Chicago Cubs second baseman Ben Zobrist, one of the most vocal supporters of turning over baseball rulings to software, used an argument with the umpire as a chance to advocate for a change in the league. The comment reinvigorated a long-standing debate over automation in sports. You're out! As you watch baseball on television, a graphic is often overlaid on the action that shows in real time whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. But human umps are still making the calls on the field based on nothing but their own eyes. Increasingly, viewers and players would rather have the technology take over.

Comments

Seems reasonable

[cascadingstylesheet]

Seems reasonable ... we want the game play to be human, but mechanical tasks like measuring what was where when, why not automate them?

I think we should have robots as players

[JoeyRox]

Since they're all juiced up anyway. The game has become a contest of who has access to the best 'roids.

How about a halfway approach

[magarity]

Give the umpires something along the lines of Google glasses that overlay the baseball strike zone in real time like the TV coverage?