Technology can improve sports decision-making, but it cannot remove the importance of human judgment, argues Moran Cerf, professor of neuroscience and business at Columbia University, in this DLD Sports presentation.
Drawing on his work with elite athletes, teams and performance technologies, Cerf presents sport as a real-time laboratory for studying decisions, pressure and the brain. “Referees are people who make decisions that are very kind of binary”, he explanis. “You can see foul, no foul. Goal, no goal.”
On average, referees are 90% accurate, studies show. “Most of the time, referees are actually correct in their calling”, Cerf stresses. “And this is why we still like to have referees make the shots on the field.”
Technology is a vital helper for close calls where human habits, external pressures, and cognitive limitations affect judgment.
But even then, the question becomes whether sports fans would accept anything but 100% accuracy. “Let’s replace the referees with an AI that makes decisions”, Cerf says. “Are you happy if it does 61%? Or do you say, ‘No, it has to be 100% before you do it’?”
Watch the video to explore this fascinating talk in detail.
