Why Human Referees Are Getting Replaced
Are AI referees ruining sports? Or making them better?
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If you’re watching the 2023 US Open, you’re seeing automated referee calls. After years of controversy about human accuracy, tennis has used a system called Hawkeye to not only check human calls… but now to replace human referees. And this robot ref revolution isn’t just happening in tennis. It’s taking over the sports world. Soccer, basketball, baseball, they are all using machines to improve the calls being made on the field. The World Cup in particular has invested in these tools, from VAR (video assistant referee) to semi-automated offside and goal-line technology.
The stakes are high. The difference between a right or wrong call can be a championship, or millions of dollars in prizes, endorsements, ticket sales. For the most part, fans like tech that makes calls more objective. HOWEVER… there is a big chunk of sports fans who would strongly disagree, who think that robot refs are ruining the game.
Thing is, this tech isn’t going back in the bottle! Stadiums are now being decked out with dozens of cameras that can track balls, people, and even use AI to make calls so accurate that one day human refs might be a thing of the past…
Chapters:
00:00 How tennis started a robot ref takeover
00:50 Soccer, basketball, and baseball automating refs
01:53 High tech World Cup balls
02:17 Semi-automated offsides technology
02:58 Video assistant referee (VAR)
04:25 Why some fans HATE robot referees
05:17 Do these tools remove human nuance?
06:27 Why some fans LOVE robot referees
07:02 How Hawkeye works in tennis
07:40 NBA and MLB announcements
08:14 Why these tools are huge if true
I talked about this episode with @mkbhd on the @Waveform podcast here: • Can You Start a YouTub...
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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular KZhead channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s KZhead Originals show, Glad You Asked.
Additional reading and watching:
- Semi-automated offside technology, FIFA: www.fifa.com/technical/footba...
- Video assistant referee, FIFA: www.fifa.com/technical/footba...
- The TRUTH behind Hawk Eye Accuracy, by Cult Tennis: • The TRUTH behind Hawk ...
- How the World Cup’s AI instant replay works, by Vox: • How the World Cup’s AI...
- Breaking down Goal-Line Technology, by FIFA: • Breaking down Goal-Lin...
- Automated Line Calls Will Replace Human Judges at U.S. Open, New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2020/08/03/sp...
- At the U.S. Open, line judges are out. Automated calls are in., NPR: www.npr.org/2022/09/10/112180...
- Hawk-Eye Innovations and MLB Introduce Next-Gen Baseball Tracking and Analytics Platform: pro.sony/ue_US/press/hawk-eye...
- NBA to use Hawk-Eye tracking system to follow players and ball, ESPN: www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/3...
- The World Cup’s new high tech balls: • The World Cup's new hi...
- Worst line calls and umpire decisions in Tennis: • Video
Vox: www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16-35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX
Music: Musicbed
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Welcome to the joke down low:
What do you serve but never eat?
… Tennis balls.
Use the word “serve” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one who read to the end :)
In cricket, we have Hawkeye, but there is a thing called 'Umpires call' if it's wayy too close, allowing the human factor to still come into play. this way obv decisions given wrong are overturned, but the really close ones are still left to human judgment. Just thought you should know that.
Yeah, it should never be just one or the other. It should be both working together to fill in the gaps that the other has. Tech has the accuracy while the humans see the nuance of a scenario.
along with that, cricket also does it right by allowing 2 reviews per inning.. and teams losing the review if they get it wrong.. it a good balance between human judgement and AI.
Yeah, I'm a little sad that this video didn't address Cricket at all. A whole video can be made about the DRS system in IPL and ICC tournaments.
Hawk eye started for cricket, then adopted for various sports. Huge miss by the presenter not mentioning the fact. I'd say, Cricket is the only global sport adopting technology at a good place. There were always 3rd umpire calls since time immemorial, and now we have light up bails to assist on field umpires with run out and stumping calls.
@@sajid_ahamedi feel the same… this type of system has been in cricket since years
The point of referees and umpires is to accurately evaluate the game and make calls, if technology can help do that better it should absolutely be used. The entertainment for me is the athletes playing the sport, that’s the human element. I don’t want to turn umpiring and refereeing into another secondary sport that also has human error.
Well said... I hate listening to these dinosaurs that want to continue the old ways.
Unfortunately for soccer fans, refs seem to believe they are part of the entertainment, and make calls to facilitate the entertainment rather than just trying to make the correct call.
Agree… I think the use of technology in this way is not primarily about “fairness” but “correctness” on the decisions and calls. The latter will bring the former as a consequence, not the other way around. Technology will help us see whether or not the rules are followed, like in he case of the “one inch off side”.
Do it like in cricket. Add it as a game mechanic. Teams are allowed to contest umpire decisions and there are limited uses so you can't misuse it. Adds to the entertainment and is fair as well.
You can't ask the athletes to be more precise than humanly possible. The technology can show that a player was a millimetre out of line, but players have no way of knowing that.
I think there biggest problem with the VAR in football (soccer) is that they let the play go for far too long before invalidating it. Before, the referee and the line judges where making calls the moment they saw them, now you see a pass, then 5 more passes and then a goal, and 3 minutes later it turns out the first pass was offside and the goal doesn't count. It's also frustrating when you see a goal, but you can't celebrate until they validate it 3 minutes later. Even when it turns out it is valid the feeling is different.
Thanks. The only perspective so far that I can relate to on the no-tech side. That said, it's just a matter of time before the hidden judges behind the computers are removed from real time judging. That's when the machine vision, coupled with AI, can make practically instant decisions, and those refs are only needed if the coach of the team that disagrees with the ruling challenge the decision like in tennis. I think it'd also make sense to limit the challenges allowed per team. What do *you* think about that possible future?
@@matejlaskomulej I'm not a big fan of using AI to evaluate fouls, or other surjective stuff. For goals and offside I think it's great. I'm also of the idea that having a challenge system as tennis is better than having someone in ht VAR room deciding if they should check the replay or not.
As someone who doesn't watch soccer or football and don't know what off side even means, I agree with the sentiment.
@@eliasmochan Is this just a personal feeling or is there any reason behind your first statement? I think well defined rules make it easier for all parties involved, especially if they can be absolutely enforced. Though I don't mind the buffer zone either, as long as it's well defined to. We get to see which team is better playing this well defined game, not which has players who are better at dirty tricks and hiding cheats. I don't bet, but those who do also deserve to bet on their team against the opponents, not on the judges and what not.. Also no one could get justifiably angry at the ref, so general respect amongst players would be higher, I think. Also, the rules are not and should not be clad in stone. The sport needs to evolve. If there is certain type of foul that AI doesn't recognise as a foul, but the ref comity would, AI would learn it as a new rule.
Odd, that's not the way it's been done for years in American football (not soccer). After seeing an infraction, a ref instantly blows the whistle to stop the play (and the clock). Then the head ref calls the tech boys to review the video and a bevy of other sensor recordingins resulting in them informing the head ref what actually happened. I guess the difference is that in American football, stopping the clock and putting time back onto the clock when necessary, is a given while in the rest-of-the world football, they hardly ever stop the clock nor add time back onto the clock.
Immediately as soon as you mentioned "it's 2004 and Serena Williams is playing Jennifer Capriati" i rolled my eyes cause I remember watching that match live and being appalled that such a horrible call was made. I don't miss these types of arguments at all. It's insane to me that players still lose points due to human error (at least at bigger tournaments that can afford it) when tech like Hawkeye exists.
Wait but so did she eventually get that point?
@@BarelyNoticeable no. The call stood bc they didn't have challenges yet. If anything I'm pretty sure she lost the match
@@livelierfellow well that’s upsetting
@@BarelyNoticeable yeah just looked it up. Serena lost. And that wasn't the only bad call she experienced in the match. I remember Serena kinda losing her focus bc she kept getting bad calls. It was pretty much the catalyst for officially adopting hawk eye at the US open
@@livelierfellow Wow. The most unsatisfying end I could've hoped for...
I think the main complaint about VAR among soccer fans, or at least Premier League fans, is really about how poor the implementation of the tech has been. That includes two main concerns: 1. the rules governing the use of the tech within the game, and 2. the amount of time it takes the ref to make a decision on the pitch when using the tech. The last one doesn't matter much for many other sports, but for soccer it's a major issue as the clock only stops at half-time and at the end of the game.
Agreed, but the obvious solution to this problem is not to prefer quicker over correct decisions, but to stop the clock whenever the ball is not in play...
@@jullit31 I've been tryna say this for ages. It eliminates the whole timewasting yellow card and (not exactly) 37 mins of added time thing and the ball stays in play for the same amount of time every game so it literally solves everything. Idek why it hasn't already been implemented. However the VAR part I mostly agree with- only because there have been times where they've taken time and still got it wrong
I hate the waiting for any sport personally. As a fan, it just slows the game down. We've gotta sit there and wait for a ref to watch a TV or get a call from some guy in an office somewhere. Then the ref trots out and explains while the initial call on the field was wrong. It just takes up so much time and slows everything down. It's frustrating to watch. I wish they could figure out how to use the tech for real time calls and not stopping the game.
one obvious solution is to stop the clock for dead ball, or give the right amount of stoppage time
Stop/start games ruin the flow of the game. I think FIFA proposed a 60min countdown clock, reducing game time to 30min halves, but only counted down when the ball was in play (in the PL, the average ball-in-play time is about 55mins anyway) but I think they scrapped it for 2 simple reasons. 1. Tradition: that simple really, same reason a cricket test match can get rained out instead of just postponing the game to another date; it's just how the sport has been for a while now. 2. Simplicity, this one is key. FIFA tries to keep soccer simple and consistent across all levels, PL, ligue 1, lower league football and this continues into sunday leagues and recreational football. Essentially, it benefits everyone if soccer is consistent as possible everywhere, that way everyone can agree on the rules (this applies to refs too). Also, it keeps a human element to the game, leaving the ref with the final call. Personally, i think if stop clocks were introduced, we'd see broadcasters trying to pack in a lot more ads during game time
I think Cricket does it the best. It's a shame that it wasn't covered in this video, but they brought in crazy tech into the game long before some of the sports like Football. In Cricket, the tech is there, but someone has to initiate to use it. You need to challenge the referees sitting on computers to use it to see if the on-field human call was right or not. You as a team only have limited number of wroong calls you can get too. There's still a lot of human element involved in the game, and everyone moves on if the call falls in the human margin of error. But the tech is soo accurate with ball tracking to the length of a mm. IMO it's the best example of usage of tech without ruining the game.
As a whole I agree, however I think there is one issue ball tracking in cricket: it favours the batter. It's given umpire's call if less than half of the ball is hitting the stumps. What it should be is umpire's call if the technology shows less than a quarter of the ball hitting the stumps OR missing the stumps by less than a quarter of a ball. Also, I think it's good enough that they can reduce the margin of error a bit.
🧂
This might work for cricket but surely not for contact sports. There are just way to many times where you could challenge the referees decision and while some referees allow more rough games, others call out the slightest touches.
I wonder why we need such "human element"; it sounds like we are only compromising with error and unfairness. Why don't way let the computer make all decision according to the rule of game and have a smaller and more consistent margin error.
@@zjh3943 I agree with the sentiment that decisions in sports must be as objective as possible, but using this kind of tech for crazy amounts of precision can be harmful to the sport IMO because of two reasons: 1. There's even a margin of error with equipment. I mean, it's not possible to get the right call with tech equipment 100% of the time, there could be times where other players are blocking the view (happens with offsides in Football), or incorrect camera angles, etc. Heck even a piece of shirt or shorts can be offside despite the player not actually being offside but the tech will still establish that the player was offisde. Where do we draw the line, especially in cases like Bayer Leverkusen, where half a toe was offside? What if shoelace is offside? 2. This brings me to a more important point - the intent behind rules such as offsides in Football, LBWs in cricket etc. The intention behind the rule was that strikers must not take advantage of empty space behind defenders, or Batters must not stop a ball from hitting stumps with their legs. So these rules are always subject to interpretation, and the tech is a side effect of such interpretations, a sympton if you will. There could be other interpretations in extraordinary situations that will reward atheticism, desire, fitness etc which are inherently what sport is all about. If a player is offside because of a shoelace, has that player really taken advantage of the field by staying near opposition goal? Not really, in fact they showed great skill to time their run right and got at the end of the ball and scored, which must be rewarded instead of punishing them with a marginal call. This is my take, but I feel that's what lot of people also reflect when they criticize VAR.
Hawk-Eye, developed in the UK, was first used in Cricket in 2000 and has been used ever since.
That is the only think the UK has left to sell after Brexit.
Yeah, I'm surprised she didn't mention this.
Cricket definitely does it the best. Like all rhe other comments mentioned, the fact that teams lose a review if they get it wrong and the 'umpires call' system makes a big difference. Cricket has also had it for over a decade now.
Yea man
So does Tennis... they have limited challenges per game/set
Was Hawkeye not used in cricket decades ago already? I think its implementation of using the “umpires call” for close decisions finds the right balance between technology and the human element.
A video about hawkeye tech not including cricket is a bit bizarre. It's one of the oldest and best implementations of the tech.
Yeah, umpires call is just a fancy way of saying you get a point you didn't earn. No way a human can do better.
@@JonTanti it was invented for cricket . this woman seems like ignorant biased american lady who probably doesn't care about sports that non western folks do well too
If its a close decision shouldn't hawkeye be used more??? Only obvious decisions shouldn't use hawkeye and be called by refs, as in obvious cases, it would take too long to apply hawkeye to. "Umpires call" makes no sense
@@JonTanti Agree, Cricket is where it all started. At least an honourable mention would have been good 🙂
Another problem I see in soccer in particular is that these complicated cases seem to happen too often and the game basically stops for a long time.
as a major football fan ⚽️, i have to say my biggest issue with VAR is the way it’s such an incredible time sink. stoppage time has rly ballooned since VAR was first instituted. like the time it takes just to decide to reference VAR can be 4 minutes it feels absurd
4 minutes to get a call right that could turn a match seems pretty reasonable.
atm is 4 min, in 20 years it's decided in miliseconds, just give it time to develop
Yeah, it's a distinction between if sports are "athletics" or "entertainment"... a 4 minute delay for a decision in a world cup final for example... completely kills the "flow", which might be good or bad for the athletic nature , but specifically is terrible for entertainment. It's pretty clear that Football (specifically men's football), is worth so much money because it's entertainment, not because it's athletic. So, at the moment the time sync is such that it's bleeding the entertainment to improve the athletic, players might like this because it's their career, to be athletes... but 99% of the money they make is because of the entertainment. So... at the moment, it's hurting. Now, there's no reason it can't be done instantly in real time ... if they need more human refs reviewing it, or less, doesn't matter to me. They need to make decisions about "wiggle room" on positioning and priority of who gets to make the final call ... and most importantly, how long a play is open to review. Design the system around that, and stick to their decision. Easy enough to say, "if a limb is over the line it's off side", or "if there's any air between the line the the ball it's a goal", or "no play can be challenged more than 15 seconds later... and decisions to disallow have to be made within 60 seconds of stopping play
I would rather wait 4 minutes for them to get the right call then be screwed as a fan.
@@Jry088 I'm sure a lot of people agree with you (maybe most, I don't know)... I'm just pointing out the distinction between making calls in Football, Vs shot-put for example. Though, it's probably something people will get use to, like people have said American football already stops play every 10 seconds, and loads of people watch that.
great video
Haha didn’t expect to find your channel here 😂😂
For real, I was captivated the whole video! Really makes you think.
It’s you
I was here.
As a Brit, regarding football. The main disadvantage and frustration is still the human interpretations and how sometimes they’re not consistent. The other is the amount of time that it can take to make a decision. In football, the difficulty in scoring a goal adds to the value of the achievement and creates ecstatic fan reactions. Imagine passionately celebrating a goal and then having to wait a number of minutes to find out that it’s no longer valid. It detracts from the experience. Hopefully we can commit to and trust technology to make quick and accurate decisions in the near future!
True just look at the guy anthony taylor and his mate mike dean ruining the football game.
As a German, I say that all that tech is nonsense. False decisions make the game even more dramatic and emotional. The tech is ruining the sport for spectators.
In the summer of 2021, my small country of Finland made it to the European Championships for the first time in history. An incredible thing for a lifelong football fan. After an extra year of waiting and uncertainty, me and a group of my friends made it to Russia for a group stage game. We take our seats right behind the goal with the biggest smiles of our lives. Couple minutes into the game and we score a beautiful goal. The away fans go nuts, we're jumping, screaming, hugging, falling over and getting back up. You check the linesman, flag stays down. Referee, nothing. The most surreal feeling, we won the first game and now this! Pure exctasy! By the time we settle down, minutes have passed. The goal that was scored "forever ago" gets suddenly taken away. VAR has concluded that he was offside with the smallest of margins. In silence we sit down, the earth has just swallowed us all. The purest childlike joy from scoring a goal is gone forever...
@@smallego8068 As a south African i agree this is one thing that AI systems should not interrupt because it's fun and not a serious task like work related stuff
@@moulin1995 FIFA is about billions. It's more serious than most businesses. At least football was turned into a serious business whereas it should be just fun.
It’s funny as a Belgian hearing her and the computer completely mispronounce Club Brugge and then saying “i got that one”
I have no clue what site she uses but it is so wrong, very unfortunate. Just say Club Bruges, everybody knows Bruges (maar Gent is mooier ;-) )
@@Pouckie90 hahaha, inderdaad ik heb liever dat mensen of plaatsen benoemen in hun moedertaal (Bruges) of juiste bronnen gebruiken om het in de juiste plaatstaal zeggen. Op het tweede ga ik je geen ongelijk geven, maar ook geen gelijk.
In Ireland we use Hawkeye when the umpire isn’t sure if it went in or out in Hurling/Camogie and Gaelic, it’s an outdoor sport with the ball the size of a tennis ball moving up to 180km/ph
1:00 "The difference between a right and wrong call could be a championship" (shows Max verstappen) im dead 💀
Hahaha, I came here to say exactly this. Brutal.
Michael Masi & FIA robbed that one. And the scandal got even worse when it became evident that Redbull had broken the agreed cost cap to achieve that stolen championship. The race director should be in some sort of hell, but after 3 months in hiding, he got a great F1 job despite cheating Mercedes.
@felipeb.9321 Team LH representing even in totally unrelated videos 😂
Hawk eye in cricket considers margin for error in the technology also. On field "umpire's call" stays if its too close or not conclusive even with the use of technology (happens a lot).
Hawkeye was first implemented in the sport of cricket to review a Leg Before Wicket (a form of dismissal in the sport), and I feel it is incorporated quite well into the sport where the batter would only be dismissed if half or more than half of the ball is projected to hit the wicket, or if the less than half the ball hits the stump the decision would be in favour with the decision the on-field umpire made without using any technology. The same ideology could also be applied in other sports like soccer (the one with the biggest VAR related controversies) in which they could do something like the offside call would only be enacted if lets say more than 10% of the players body is in front of the line of incidence and that part of the body was not used to score a goal. Hawk-eye is not a bad thing necessarily but it should definitely be passed through on-field referees to incorporate on a certain level that human factor people find lacking in hawk-eye while also allowing just calls to be made through its help.
tu to indian hai tu phir soccer kyo bol rha. It's football
What’s a Cricket ? Isn’t it an insect? Do you play with insects in this sport ? Weird sport not gonna lie. Perfect for Indians, the land of snake charmers and curry
@@jaarya7 The entire world. It's football, only Americans call it soccer.
@@jaarya7 It was developed by engineers at Roke Manor Research Ltd in Romsey, England, in 2001. The patent is held by Paul Hawkins and David Sherry. The system was first used during a Test match between Pakistan and England at Lord's Cricket Ground, on 21 April 2001. It was first used in Tennis in the 2006 US Open.
Cricket does this best, with the umpire's call. It is also quite transparent, so you can hear in the stadium the third umpire's working/reasoning. I noticed at FIFA World Cup this year the FIFA does not have this same level of transparency
I might be biased as a Canadian, being raised on hockey, but I feel like the NHL has been using this technology for a decade at least. Any time there's a questionable goal or play, the frame by frame is consulted and the judges make the final call. It makes for some pretty fair calls, but also some pretty hotly contested ones. Some fans will see a clear goal while the other teams fans will see a clear penalty
It isn't the VAR technology that ruins football, it is the offside/handball rules and inconsistent interpretations of them! I hope the descisions get more consistent, made quicker, and the offside/handball rules get adjusted for better human common sense and entertainment!
Exactly!! They fix this and everything is fine!! No way can we go back to the old way,that was ridiculous but the VAR teams need to know the rules inside out. I mean the handball controversies are getting surrel
Loved hearing you chat with Marques about this, and fascinated by the full video! Gonna be an exciting world of sports tech.
Yeah was waiting for this video since the pod
I don't care about Marques' opinion.
As someone who works for Hawk-Eye, I always find it very interesting to see outside perspectives on the tech and how much people actually understand how it works, this video did a great job at keeping the explanations accessible to all, while still getting to the finer points!
It didn't touch on the implications that if this technology exists, then our every movement can be tracked in public up to every 2ms, every toe, every angle of your fingers, every inch of you is captured, and fed into a black box system you don't understand and may never know even exists. There's many many natural questions that arise when you realize the level of detail of this technology exists, the militarization aspect seems obvious to me as well. I feel like the video didn't discuss anything relevant to this technology except for the sports projection of this innovation. Anyway, carry on
@@snared_Do you realize how expensive this system is? Are you joking?
@@bftjoe it's not though, it's built off of a very cheap principal that by having multiple slow cheap realtime camera angles of the same subject, a computer can take all of their information at once and build models which capture far more details than any one individual camera can capture. The exact system they have for the games are expensive, yes, but that doesn't mean you can get 95% of the way there with 5% of the cost.
@@snared_ This is like worrying your cheap car will suddenly turn into a Ferrari while you're not looking. LOL.
@@bftjoe no, it's information, that is there, that is able to be captured in a novel way - and I bring to the table the privacy concerns of such new technology. It isn't prohibitively expensive
1:30 abu dhabi 2021 f1 reference. Lol 😂
Sports will not lose refs all together. Basketball is a perfect example of a sport that will vary in calls game to game. Erased my long paragraph to say, there are a LOT of judgment calls, especially with physical contact.
No machine can evaluate the intent of physical contact.
@@ireallyreallyhategoogleyet.
NBA is gonna be one of the harder sports to implement this kind of automation, esp w foul calls... but the tech will obvs continue to evolve
@@Leuel48Fan Only humans can make those calls. The technology can only give humans more information to base those calls on. I think the best thing with the 3D tracking and simulation will be for training.
I used to ref Soccer, offsides was always tricky, remember it isn't just about the one guy trying not to go offsides, but also the defense pushing up, trying to make him offside. I think the real issue is expectations. As long as players know even a toe over counts as offsides, they just need to play to that, and give themselves some room for error.
Maybe I'm ignorant about soccer but is that rule even really necessary?
@@Agedude Offsides? It keeps players from camping at the other goal for one.
Imagine calling unfair calls part of the game. There are some truly special people in this world.
Without trying to sound pedantic Cleo, the offsides system is referred to in plural because it's referring to multiple potential offside infractions hence "offsides", however in the scenario an offside infraction the player in question would be referred to as offside/being offside (singular rather than the plural "offsides"). Ted Lasso does use this joke though so don't feel to bad about the small error haha 👍😁 Same with the "onsides" @ 5:57 the player would be "onside" rather than "onsides". 👌 Fun fact too that the sport of Rugby has been using video refs since the mid 90's, well before football/soccer where they only officially introduced the system in 2017.
It would be awesome if you could make a sequel video to this with cricket as an example. We had “hawkeye” decades ago. But it was used only if players wanted to use it to overturn on field umpire’s decision. What you are discussing here was mitigated in cricket a long time ago. It would make a good case study.
Tennis used this tech that way for a long time. They repurposed the tech from cricket for tennis a while ago. People had a limited number of challenges. They abandoned that in 2020, at least for the US Open.
@@Tkb135cricket cameras cover a much larger area than tennis
In baseball that's what's happening in the minor leagues. A player taps his hat for a challenge and in less than 3 seconds the tech says whether it was a ball or strike and they keep playing. I hope they move that to the major leagues.
No one knows about cricket outside India. It’s a fact
@@Elninojuniorreally, New Zealand, Australia, England, all the West Indian/Caribbean countries, and many more is not aware of the second most watch sport (behind football) on the planet?
Wow, really nice video. As a cricket fan and from a country which loves the sport, I can vouch that there are wayy more people who are in support of Hawkeye and other tech being used in cricket than the amount of people who don't like it.
Just recently come across your channel, you’re incredible! I love the information and the style of your videos. Would love more longer format videos like this on your channel!
I found your channel in the shorts. You seem like a beautiful person inside and- i should think obviously -outside. Your excitement gets me excited. I'm so happy to have found this channel.🎉
I recently left Hawk-Eye as a Computer Vision and AI engineer, I worked on Semi-Auto offside, Basketball, Baseball and more I can't talk about because it's not released yet. Really cool to see this video, accuracy was top notch. 😉
why bring it up if you can't talk aboot it. Pedant ! lol!
Hawk-Eye technology was first used in cricket in 2001 during a Test match between England and Pakistan at Lord's Cricket Ground. Channel 4 was the first to use the technology to track the trajectory of balls in flight. Hawk-Eye was invented by Paul Hawkins, a British computer expert. It was originally intended for cricket and was used by television broadcasters to analyze leg before wicket (lbw) decisions. Hawk-Eye is now used in over 20 sports and covers 20,000 games or events across 500+ stadiums in over 90 countries each year. It's used by officials in tennis to help with close line calls. It was first used at Wimbledon in 2007 on Centre Court and Court 1. It's now used on Centre Court plus courts one, two, three, 12 and 18.
New subscriber and loving your videos, you do a perfect job of breaking down topics in easy to understand form with wonderful graphics. Great video!
There's no more unbiased referee than a machine.
One of the big issues you missed is the “flow of the game”, which is basically the storytelling. With every key moment taking a few minutes to be checked, it means that athletes can’t fully celebrate their successes in the moment - as it might be overturned. Of course the way to fix this is with quicker and better tech so that the on-field ref can make the right (robot enhanced) call straight away.
I work for Sony sports at a sister company of hawk eye and wanted to say thanks for the video! It’s already been shared across the company and folk are commenting on your impartiality and ability to explain this complex topic in such an entertaining way!
Soccer they go grand. It wins All ways soccer
It didn't touch on the implications that if this technology exists, then our every movement can be tracked in public up to every 2ms, every toe, every angle of your fingers, every inch of you is captured, and fed into a black box system you don't understand and may never know even exists. There's many many natural questions that arise when you realize the level of detail of this technology exists, the militarization aspect seems obvious to me as well. I feel like the video didn't discuss anything relevant to this technology except for the sports projection of this innovation. With Sony also manufacturing millions of cameras, it makes me wonder, seems natural to put the two and two together. What exactly do they have planned for this technology, anything "extremely innovative"? Hopefully you can write back with whatever details you need to leave out, out.
5:30 Club Brugge...yeah I got that right.😂😂😂😂No, you didn't.
It's interesting to use that clip from Sain vs I think Japan, since in that same match there was a hawkeye call of less than a mm on the ball itself too. Sparked a lot of conversation around the tech.
In badminton the hawk-eye system is used slightly differently. Players get several challenges available per game (i believe 2 for each player). Players can immediately challenge the ref's or line judges call and the technology will check if the shuttle was in or out. If the player is succesfull with the challenge they keep the number of challenges. It makes a better human-technology interaction in my opinion.
Two big sports -- outside the US -- that use this tech are cricket and badminton. It's particularly interesting in the latter, because tracking a shuttle is a lot harder than tracking an essentially ballistic object, and determining the point of contact is harder still. To add to that, the grueling nature of the sport makes it vital that it proceed with a minimum of interruption, so they allow a player to challenge calls only twice per game.
the badminton hawkeye can be quite controversial though as iirc it doesnt factor in any drift (wind). Ignoring that though I love the implementation of it in the sport. 2 challenges per set and if you are wrong you lose a challenge. Still keeping all the line judges and their calls. It also helps a lot if the shuttle was unseen by the line judge. Honestly annoyed it wasnt mentioned in this video, and cricket too after reading a lot of the comments.
Even then many are not covered by hawkeye like shuttle nearing net area player fault etc.....still rely on umpire. Var needs to be introduced.
why limit to two challenges? Are there only two bad calls per game? I'll agree to the limit if the judge/ref get fired on the spot for making two bad calls.
@@jokedog It just takes too long. If I was a player in trouble, or tired, I'd start challenging every call. I think it's a fair compromise.
@@yellowshuttle I understand that aspect. How about 2 incorrect challenges per game, that way one can't challenge every call, but if you're right, you're effective gets unlimited challenges so if a ref/judge is out to get you or favors your opponent, they can't.
2001 it was introduced in cricket and the best part is an external umpire makes the suggestion and recommends the on field umpire to make their decisions
As always, you and your team do a fantastic job.
I don't believe Ai will ever fix human pride and arrogance. Most people would rather argue all day long, even if they are obviously wrong, than to ever admit a mistake.
I aggree, and I'd add that as part of the game. At least from a psychological perspective.
With the offsides example you provided, the issue for me is that the offsides threshold is drawn as though it's a perfect line. In practice, any tracking system is going to have a margin of error, and that error increases as the tracjed object (in this case a player) moves unpredictably. So that threshold is really just the median of a bell curve of uncertainty describing the position of the final defender. So in practice that should have been considered too close to call. Tennis balls are different since they act as projectiles on a predictable curve. Their trajectory can be modeled much more accurately than the movement of a soccer player.
Finally someone who actually makes a sensible comment. I completely agree with you. I was saying how there is a problem of parallax error, as the lines drawn on screen are not even parallel with the halfway line or the goal line. Which means that the line is not a true representation of the actual scenario. Please let me know if I'm misunderstood
@@nalleK_ what you're describing is tangential to what I'm talking about (no pun intended). The tracking software is attempting to simultaneously locate the ball as well as all the players on the field in real time. Typically, object tracking algorithms use an Extended Kalman Filter (or similar variant) to calculate an area of uncertainty regarding the object's current position. Objects that move "linearly" (i.e. with predictable trajectories) will have a very small level of uncertainty while objects that move "non-linearly" will have large levels of uncertainty. The problem with tracking players on a field is that they move very non-linearly. They constantly change directions and speed.
@@LimitedWard Thank you for making that clear 👍
Your videos are always so well made!
Fascinating subject as a sports fan. Cricket had it in 2001, have iterated on it many times and have a system that favours the human decision (umpire's call others have mentioned). Football haven't got it right yet, they need to learn from other sports, including rugby (not hawkeye, just use of off-field refs) if they are going to improve. Nothing worse than being in a stadium or watching at home and you have no idea why a particular decision has been made,. Rugby make this transparent so that everyone knows, even if it's not right, by miking up the refs. The decision process is a combination of human and technology - and how this improves our enjoyment of sport. Look at the penalty in the SWE v USA game. It was poorly communicated and the only reason we knew was the poor hand signals from the ref, and the reaction of the (somewhat confused) Sweden player. Had we heard a discussion between the ref and the bunker and been allowed to see the evidence in real time, then this would have been clearer (and arguably more entertaining)
Something that you didn’t mention is the part of the tech that ruins the game isn’t usually with the line tech. It’s more with the penalties, red cards or other things that would be at the referees discretion . Showing the ref angles that make things look much worse than it is. Thats the real issue with the review tech. I think line technology isn’t bad
I really appreciate how you evaluate different reasons for not wanting this tech and fairly and accurately describing why it’s not fair to the athlete. You summed it up so perfectly! Thank you for this interesting video and great writing and points!
This was incredibly well-produced. I can’t believe I haven’t discovered your channel until now but I’m subscribed. Most of us tennis fans love hawk-eye!
I hope Cleo comes across cricket too.. there is a system in cricket where there are physical refs present on field who give their own decisions.. but the teams can oppose and ask them to use tech which can override or confirm the on field refs decision.. the only catch is that teams get a set amount of reviews.. once you take a review, you can't challenge the refs later in the game..
Its a US channel, so Cricket does not exist. In fact most of them think its called Croquet.
@@alani3992 that was years ago I think.. they just started major league cricket there.. also now most cricket matches in the carribbean are getting shifted to Canada and US..
@@alani3992nah she is especially an American centric idiot . How do you do research about Hawkeye and not come across cricket and it's Hawkeye invention . It is the first line on Wikipedia . Cult tennis channel mentioned it
Nice work Cleo. In cricket as well, technology has enabled to overturn many wrong decisions. The only concerning part that I have witnessed is the human error seems to keep increasing many folds as referees/umpires rely more on tech. Tech will not replace referees, hope they find a good middle ground where it assists them well :)
Umpires call is totally faulty in cricket. The Ump does not even say what his call was for each stage of the decision making.
First video I’ve ever seen from you. Incredibly well done.
For baseball it would make so much sense regarding the strike zone. The strike zone is a virtual area that even with years of experience you can't appropriately register with a ball going 160mph towards you and a guy swigging a bat 2 inches from you.
The level of joy and curiosity that Cleo brings to each subject is something I aspire to implement in my own life!
I Agree here.... 👍
It’s a pretty cool idea to have this tech in sports, but there will be a time where people are going to heavily blame AI refs for getting calls wrong even if they are right purely because of lack of trust
People say all kind of stupid things It is upto us how much attention we give them
They do that with human refs now. As technology improves, not only do AI refs improve, but the ability to provide highly accurate visuals of what actually happens improves too.
I love that you show both aspects of it, and not just shout "how awesome is this tech"
in badminton and volleyball they have Hawkeye, but there is an instant review system. each team may challenge a line judge or umpire's call. they have unlimited number of challenge until maximum 2 failed challenge calls. so there's mostly human element to judge the calls
"How much better does a technology need to be than humans for us to like it" is a groundbreaking question that time will tell. I am prepared to see how things go. Also the boost to the human element in sports assisted by technology is something to keep an eye out for. These really were the key takeaways for me from this video.
4 to 1 is a conservative lower bound IMHO. That's when it becomes compelling. Things tend to continue to improve beyond that, but I'd bet that threshold is when it becomes widely compelling. Foe something like self-driving cars, an 80% reduction of accidents/injuries/fatalities becomes irrational to argue with. Yeah, you might still be in that unlucky 20%, but even if you are, your life saved 4 others.
I was a high school football referee for 14 years. There were things that this would have been incredibly useful for. The one area where Hawkeye cannot make a judgment and never will, regardless of how technologically advanced it becomes is in the area of intent. When you're refereeing a game and you're watching the players, you know when one of them is getting hot and wants to hurt another player. Hawkeye will never be able to do that.
same for soccer referee, it's really important ! a "human referee" on the field is very important when games (and players) are too much involved.
Never is a strong and dangerous word; I am very wary of using it in the same breath as AI. This is a common fallacy about AI, the thought that it can not detect intent or other very human characteristics because it is not human. It does not process information in the same way as us or reason in the same, but both an AI and human can arrive at the same solution. AI has its own method, an insane amount of computing, because it is different does not mean it is automatically wrong. I would offer up an example where AI is on the path to understanding difficult human situations and dare I say judgement. Relates to self driving vehicles, there is a stopped vehicle on a two way road, the car needs to decide when to pass. A lot going on here, is it stopped, for how long, will it proceed, is it safe to pass, with how much speed to pass, etc. It is a judgment decision for humans but an AI can make this decision too. If enough data and computing power is thrown at a problem, there is potential. Why could an AI not have 12 cameras of the live game and have been trained on millions of soccer games and be the ref. It would have, through black box osmosis, understood what a foul is, know how to properly card, detect when a goalie comes off the line too early during a PK. AI is the future, I do not use never and AI in the same sentence, other than this one.
The tech will get to a point one day where it will read thermal temp, heart beats, and blood pressure of the players. It’ll will be easy for AI to see that then.
I would argue humans are not so good at reading intent either...
Humans aren't good at that either.
HawkEye is cool, NASCAR also uses it for Pit Road infractions and it drastically simplified some of the more judgment or easily miss-able calls such as crew members stepping in the box too soon or a driver driving thru too many stalls.
I hope you do more sports videos I really enjoy them!
I think the way IPL did it seems better. The "ref" decides first but if one of the teams disagree they can ask for basically a second opinion from the computers. But the teams can't spam this all the time. Each team gets 2 give or take. So they have to decide whether it's worth it.
Cricket actually copied tennis in this, where the player had 2 incorrect-challenges allowed per set.
@@alani3992lol nope 😂
IPL didn't do it lol,it adopted the tech created by a UK based techfirm. you make it sound like IPL specifically did those R&D and brought the innovation to the game lol
@@alani3992Cricket was the first sport to have this technology. Hawkeye was introduced by Paul Hawkins, a major cricket fan who invented this technology cause he didn't liked LBW system in cricket.
As everyone else says here, Cricket was miles ahead of other sports in this. But even a less discreet sport like Rugby Union has used the TMO for a long time. One of the things I find so frustrating about football is they keep making the same mistakes Rugby made decades ago instead of learning from them and building on it.
Love your conclusion. 🙏🏼
Thank you Cleo for shining light on this!! I was so prepared to see the tennis clay court line calls, where the umpire comes down from their chair to see the mark... Really funny and entertaining stuff!! 😂 But hey, the point you made about us fans getting entertainment from the distress of the players is wrong, I totally agree with that
Content like this is so amazing! You show both sides of an argument give your opinion but don’t force it on others. Like you said about the ball being in or out, it’s fun to see if you’re right when that happens in tennis. I thought I was the only geek out there squinting at pixels saying “it’s in” or “it’s clearly out!” LOL thank you!
Great video. Well done Cleo. Its a good job the controversial soccer match call wasn't between Zawisza Bydgoszcz and Borussia Monchengladbach
You did a great job editing this
On the football counterexample, football just needs to come up with a more accurate rule for offsides relative to what a human uses to judge offsides. if most referees use the torso/centreline of a person to judge offsides, then that's what the system should do.
That's actually what I was thinking. There could also be some rule about motion, perhaps, but that might be a bigger change than I realize. If a human official has a margin of error of 40cm, then it stands to reason that a human player has a somewhat similar margin of error, and that should be accounted for when the system makes its calls. One way or another, a human official should always be able to wave off an automated call that's in this sort of grey area, whether that's an official in the booth or one on the field.
@@OnTheNerdySideI get your concerns but I do not see how this solves the issue. Giving an official to wave-off calls which are in the grey area cant work. How would you define that area? If you simply allow the official to do as he pleases the disadvantaged team will always complain. If you strictly define that grey area, the problems are reintroduced as there will be edge cases again. As long as the descion is a yea/no type situation, there will always be edge cases.
I'm surprised cricket with Hawkeye wasn't brought up also Rugby with TMO. TMO is great for player safety but there are examples of it taking up a lot of time and taking out that human element.
When I heard you were making this video on Waveform, I couldn't wait for it
In rare cases I find entertaining channels while recording music - this morning I found Cleo and was immediately sold! :-)
I'm surprised cleo didn't mention cricket's excellent use of technology. Normally she really researches her stuff...
1:02 💀💀💀
Awesome work as always 👏
Making an arbitrary buffer such as "1/4 inch of the player's toe was offside, but we'll allow it because they player played according to the spirit of the rule" is basically a change in the rules of the game.
Hey Cleo, appreciate this video and your focus on really relevant issues like this one. I've watched your other videos about AI, and I've noticed something missing from your discussion, something that I find really concerning about AI. That is: AI replaces human labor and effort, and that can be a good thing for the quality of work, as in the example of sports. But what happens to those people who have just lost their jobs? In the case of tennis, were those 200 lines judges hired to implement the Hawkeye tech? Or are they just out of luck, without a job-potentially without health insurance-and left to deal with an underfunded and undervalued social safety net until they find new work? AI, and technology more broadly, have historically been used to replace human power. But, historically, the people who do the replacing don't really care about those people who have been replaced. They care about making money. Would love to see/hear your take about technology and power-who does AI benefit? and should we be worried about when, how, and why AI is seen as a solution...
I don’t understand why cricket isn’t even mentioned in this video. Not one single frame. Your point regarding the human factor could have have been better explained with the example of cricket. Poorly researched video.
Badminton implements it really well. A player is given 2 challenges a set, if the human line judge makes a call the player can challenge it. If they are wrong then they lose a challenge and if they are right the keep it. Line judges still exist and they can even call unseen if they didnt see a shuttle land (if a player was in the way, for example).
A good example for this it's rugby. They have been using the Var system for years but it's always down to the referee to make the call, this way they get the precision but also they are the ones who judge if the accuracy of the machine is fair or not. Rugby is a clear example that a good set of clear rules plus the help of more accurate machines can really help a sport be fair while keeping that human side to it :)
Your graphics team is incredible.
Hawk-eye was invented first for cricket. Cricket attempts to implement the "grey area" rule suggested in the video: hawk-eye in cricket isn't supposed to overturn onfield umpire decisions that are line-ball only decisions that are clearly wrong. Cricket teams are allowed 3 clearly incorrect before they are prevented from reviewing again in that innings of 10 outs (which in my opinion is too many reviews, currently it's exceptionally rare for a team to ever run out of reviews).
lovely video, as always. I vote for some buffer built in the system.
Good video, and thanks for clearly marking out the sponsored segment (too bad it was mid-roll, but you can't have everything).
Genuine question: In British English, we call is "off side", but Cleo says "off sides". Is that what it's called in the US, or just a minor error? Incidentally, love how this video was done, and I have learned about Hawkeye's start in cricket from the comments. Great stuff.
Would love it if you did a sequel to this exploring how tech is used in rugby union to look into concussion
This is so crazy to me just the other day i was thinking about if referees should make the call on offsides when AI can do that and now you made a video about it. crazy
not Cleo using the "difference could be a championship" statement at 1:02 with Max Verstappen 😂
I really like your nuanced takes. Thank you
Actually at the beginning of the story I was like "it'll probably need buffers..." Playing games where a pixel can kill you gives you some understanding towards stuff like this.
Thanks for bringing light to tennis!
Hey, great video. I only recently found your channel. I like the topics! In the case of AI referees, I think they should exist, but only used if a player or team is challenging a call. Human refs should be on the field, and primary, and the AI is in the background. It should only be used for an official challenge to a call.
As a football fan I love the VAR because now they let the game go on if it’s not clear if a player is off-side. In the past you had so many bad off-side decisions so many legitimate goal chances eliminated because of poor linemen.
It makes more sense to just adjust some of the rules to account for robot-ness. Like, offsides shouldn’t mean literally any millimeter disqualifies a shot, but maybe just count if the torso is offsides or not. Make the rules specific enough to where the robot doesn’t ruin the game.
Baseball needs this more than any, given how the umpires union protects guys like Angel Hernandez.
Cricket was there first - and it uses Hawkeye to actually *predict* what would've happened if the batter wasn't in the way, not what did happen. And then there's 'snickometer' which uses sound instead of vision to pick up whether the bat hit the ball or not.
As mentioned by others, a big gap in this video is not mentioning that this ball tracking technology was used first in cricket and showing what they pioneered there.
God is this channel good. Best nuanced opinion on AI you'll find on the internet. This is the bar that journalism should hit across the board.