Eyes Of The Beholder

 The Olympics are on. 

The ones that take place during the winter: skiing, bobsled, luge, and plenty of ice skating. I read somewhere that this kind of thing takes place very four years or so. Recently the powers that be in Olympia, where such a things are determined I guess, decided to move the summer version of this sporting Cavalcade up by two years so some version of the Olympiad will take place every two years in an alternating fashion.

This means the swimming and running and basketball stuff will happen just about the time the average viewer wonders, "Hey, are the Olympics on this year?"

There is some sad news to report from the frosty hills of Milan, Italy where the twenty-fifth Winter Olympics are being held. Apparently there are some questions about the accuracy of the judging involved in certain events. Some of the contests have pretty clear outcomes, like downhill skiing. If you strap slippery boards to your feet and hurl yourself down a mountainside faster than the other slippery boarded speed freaks, you win. Contrastingly, there are a whole passel of events that rely on scores for style and grace which have been left to be argued about for the past hundred years or so. Like whether or not someone "stuck the landing" or if their music choice somehow didn't resonate with the finicky "experts" sitting at the edge of the rink. Lately there has been some discussion about whethere or not artificial intelligence might do a better job of discerning whose triple axle is better than whose. 

This sort of talk probably has its origins way back before there were machines that could do it, but memories of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan debacle back in 1994 make it seem all the more likely that attempts to manipulate the scoring in figure skating are probably going on all the time. Only now the emphasis might not be on breaking your challenger's kneecaps to win the gold medal. 

All of which brings me back to the lack of patience we humans have with other humans. Leaving one of us in charge of watching a group of athletes to determine the outcome of any sporting event is a fool's errand. Referees, umpires, judges and officials of all stripes are the recipients of all manner of hate and ridicule based on their split second in the moment observations. So much so that have felt compelled to supplement their eyes and ears with electronic eyes and ears to make things "better." You can't argue with instant reply, but I'll be darned if we don't all give it a shot on a regular basis. 

Which for me begs the question: How much longer before we start sending machines out on the ice to compete so that there can be no question about the mechanics of the Salchow just witnessed? And why not fill up the stands with humanoid robots that won't boo and jeer when things don't go the way they had hoped? 

This is exactly the kind of thing that would keep Elon Musk out of trouble for a few years. 

Just sayin'.