The sport of boxing is centuries old, with the first records dating back to Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt (Kuch, 2024). Over the centuries, it has gone through many phases and rules. The current base of boxing rules was developed around 1867, by John Graham Chambers, and have slightly changed and developed over recent years. Since then boxing has become massively popular with already over 8 million people practicing the sweet science in the U.S. alone (Statista, 2024). With gambling on fights, sponsor money and in more recent years broadcasting of fights, there is a lot of money to be made in professional boxing. This has always come with a lot of corruption, may it be the mafia, fighters, or other entities fixing fights, the sports have always been infiltrated with money greedy people (Povolotski, 2022).
One place where GenAI could help get rid of this corruption would be with the judges. Over the past couple of years, some companies like Deepstrike, a tech start up by Jabbr, have been working on the creation of an AI judge. Implementing over 50 metrics, looking at punch type, punches landed, aggression, and defense (Boxbox, 2022). It takes footage from amateur smartphones and/or professionally recorded footage and analyses this. The idea is to reduce or eliminate human error, bias, and corruption all in one (Yahoo Is Part of the Yahoo Family of Brands, 2023).
By implementing the AI judge, a level of objectivity can be implemented, which is hard for judges to achieve. By full analysis of the fight video data, the AI can generate an unbiased score and help eliminate favoritism, style preferences, or human error. The transparency and objective view that comes with an AI-driven decision could help people gain more trust back into the sport, as currently there still are a lot of controversies within the sport.
It might also help with viewer engagement, through in-depth analytics during live broadcasts. AI can break down each round, show highlights and mark insights on why one fighter is outperforming the other. These analytics can make the fight a lot more engaging for viewers, offering detailed metrics such as punch count, movement patterns, and punch speed. Apart from showing more information depth to current fans, it could also attract new fans and sponsors, boosting further transparency and appeal.
Although, this AI judge could help with a lot of problems within current boxing, a lot of people are not big fans of this implementation (Reddit – Does Anyone Think AI Judges Could Be a Thing in Boxing ?, 2022). Boxing is not just a sport driven by data, there are loads of factors that are extremely hard to impossible to quantify into metrics. Think of ring generalship, controlling the pace and fighter heart, which could influence a human judge towards one fighter over the other. So although AI can track physical metrics, it may not be able to judge little nuances and context of the fight. Having a human judge, with countless hours of experience and the ability to interpret situations data won’t be able to tell, is worth a lot to much.
References:
Boxbox. (2022, October 20). AI boxing judge. Superinnovators. https://superinnovators.com/2022/10/ai-boxing-judge/
Kuch, M. (2024, September 23). Boxing History: Timeline & How it started. SportsFoundation. https://sportsfoundation.org/boxing-history/
Povolotski, G. (2022, June 1). How corrupt is professional boxing? from the past until today. Fighting Advice. https://fightingadvice.com/corruption-in-pro-boxing/
Reddit – Does anyone think AI judges could be A thing in boxing ? (2022). Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Boxing/comments/10lvz86/does_anyone_think_ai_judges_could_be_a_thing_in/
Statista. (2024, April 25). Boxing participation in the U.S. 2018-2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/191905/participants-in-boxing-in-the-us-since-2006/
Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands. (2023, July 30). https://sports.yahoo.com/future-ai-judging-boxing-just-151357959.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAA30yy3nOdHEKtz-5HeC7P_Xr-TlbDN38-BRcROpySs9G9rPPKfsjGO4A4wDB7Vweausr5KsQYXQdJeYGMsC6aO9JYzaTgwK8KCxxDo0H_0U2ibq_JhuZGsDHXzN5qSP_9LcCfCE0TGodXpP6dtTZ72c_Zf87JZXLBr5t797bxik
I have to admit, I hadn’t heard about the development of AI judges in boxing before, and I find the idea both fascinating and bit concerning. While the potential to reduce corruption and bias is appealing, I’m skeptical about whether AI can fully grasp the complexities of boxing. I don’t believe AI can or should replace human judges entirely for the very reasons you mentioned in your blog. However, I do think there is merit in considering a hybrid approach where AI is used alongside real judges. This could bring a level of transparency to the process and help eliminate some forms of bias, while still allowing for human judgment in areas where data alone isn’t enough.
Of course, even with this combination, we should expect that there will still be moments of debate. As we have seen with VAR in football, despite the introduction of technology, controversial decisions still happen nearly every weekend or in major tournaments. Boxing, as a jury sport, will always have an element of subjectivity, and I don’t think we can ever completely remove that. But a combination of AI and human judges might strike a better balance and reduce the chances of outright errors and bring more transparency while maintaining the human element that is so important in the sport.