My mortifying IT balls-up proves I’m a Luddite – but this is why AI is ten times more dangerous
GAME, set and glitch: Wimbledon, a tournament priding itself on decorum and etiquette, has ballsed-up.
And it should be a lesson to us all.
AI is great but human expertise and instinct is better.
In the year the All England Club introduced Hawk-Eye tech to replace traditional line judges, to date we’ve had three major blunders, and counting.
Yes, I’m a Luddite.
(On my first day at work, IT had to come down to my floor to turn on my computer. We’d all be running around in loincloths and grunting if I were responsible for human innovation.)
But as we stand on the brink of wiping out 90 per cent of the human workforce with little robots and as our cars start to drive themselves, sport is the one place we should leave to the grown-ups.
After all, human error has always been a part of sport. It’s annoying but it’s life.
Depriving men and women from working two of the most exciting two weeks of their professional life is unnecessary — and, ultimately, costly.
The AI-powered ELC, known as Hawk-Eye Live, was criticised by both Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper for inaccuracy in their respective losses.
It then failed altogether at a crucial point in the game between Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Britain’s Sonay Kartal. Sonay’s backhand appeared at least a foot out but there was no intervention by the ELC system.
Chair umpire Nico Helwerth clearly saw the ball was out, and attempted to stop play, before the automated line judge called out “Stop! Stop!” to halt the action.
After a delay of around four minutes, while Helwerth sat on his courtside phone to get to the bottom of the farcical situation, he declared: “The electronic line- calling system unfortunately was unable to track the last point so we will replay the point.”
The furious Russian went on to suggest the official had favoured her British opponents on home soil.
Helwerth, it should be noted, is German. So that seems unlikely.
As one observer commented: “AI just makes its mistakes at super-high speeds.”
Wimbledon officials later went on to apologise to Ms Pavlyuchenkova but are determined to stand by their new, emotionless baby.
Last week, the BBC published a report stating that companies are increasingly shelling out to get human workers to fix technology’s cock-ups.
Dark twist
Having replaced their workers with robots, they are quite literally paying the price now.
And don’t get me started on chatbots.
Since its early innovation 20 years ago, we have seen AI mistakes hammering sport.
Five years ago, it made a £200million blunder, effectively sparing Aston Villa relegation and sending down hapless Bournemouth instead after a Hawk-Eye mistake failed to award Sheffield United a clear goal.
And in a dark twist, last year, the family of Michael Schumacher won their legal action against the publisher of a magazine that printed an artificial intelligence- generated interview with the stricken Formula One ace.
The German celebrity magazine Die Aktuelle promoted on its cover in April 2023 the words: “Michael Schumacher, the first interview!”
It used quotes attributed to the star, a man who has been cared for at home since 2014 following a near-fatal skiing accident, ones generated entirely by AI.
Back to Wimbledon, and a painful truth — tech may be clever but it’s not infallible.
Sport is human. It’s gloriously sweaty, messy and chaotically unpredictable.
AI should enhance human experience, not replace it.
WHAT'S UP WITH GEN-Z?
IN last week’s column, I wrote about a young man, a stranger, accidentally sending me a “kiss” on the end of a WhatsApp – and his effusive, completely unnecessary, apology for “inappropriateness”.
Anyway, reader Linda Wancycki trumps that.
She wrote in to share her own Gen-Z experience.
Over to Linda.
“Shortly before I retired from work earlier this year, my team was advised by our managers that we should not be using the thumbs-up emoji when replying to messages.
“The reason is that Gen Z finds this triggering because, far from signifying that you are responding positively, they regard the as passive aggressive and meaning “yes I have heard you but I am only complying/agreeing under duress”.
“Apparently, the correct emoji to use to signify agreement is a heart 
.
“I know I’m a dinosaur and the time was probably right for me to retire.”
Probably, Linda, probably.
Where is Keir’s ten-year plan for brave Fiona?
THE inspirational Fiona Phillips has written a heart-wrenching book detailing her experience with Alzheimer’s, unquestionably one of the worst diseases to have plagued mankind.
Her husband, former This Morning editor Martin Frizell, has also contributed, detailing his ordeal of caring for someone with this devastatingly cruel illness.
It is a book everyone can relate to – who doesn’t know someone with some form of dementia? So, why then, is there not any immediacy for treatment in the Government’s ten-year NHS plan?
The focus on a fat-jab rollout and implementing AI is of no use to the millions suffering with, or because of, this barbaric disease.
More needs to be done to offer greater dignity to those dying from dementia.
BRAWL TAKES CAKE
THERE are two types of people in this world – those who have “gender-reveal parties” and those who don’t.
If you’re a gender- reveal kinda gal/guy, we probably wouldn’t be friends.
No surprise to learn, then, this ludicrous Americanism took a turn for the worse when a luxury holiday home in the village of Norden, Greater Manchester, was trashed during a 200-people, balloon-popping, blue/pink-cake drunken rampage.
Police in riot vans were called to the ten-bed property after an Airbnb let turned into a drunken gender-reveal bash.
Alas, no word on what sex the baby is.
Just don’t care
HAVE record label bosses learned nothing?
Justin Bieber posted yet another worrying Instagram photo, showing himself heavily sweating and captioning it “Detoxxxxxxxxxx”.
This is a deeply troubled 31-year-old global superstar who needs more than a detox.
He needs a stint in rehab and a sabbatical from the music industry.
The people paid to look after him are the very same people who view the Canadian as little more than a cash cow commodity.
In an age of duty of care, where is theirs?
Meme of the week
GRANTED she’s a pal, but Book Of The Week comes courtesy of former BBC Breakfast star, Steph McGovern.
Deadline – which I, gripped, finished one midweek morning at 2am – is a fictional thriller about a TV presenter who’s earpiece is hijacked by a kidnapper who says they have the broadcaster’s wife and kid.
Based on some of Steph’s real-life TV experiences, including a stalker who once wrote to Steph’s dad asking for her hand in marriage, it’s a corker of a read.
