Technology in sports is a beautiful thing, but sometimes even the greatest inventions can go wrong. This happened over the weekend in a soccer game in Scotland, when an AI-controlled camera got confused, and thought a lineman’s bald head was the ball.
The camera was programmed to automatically follow the ball, removing the need for a human camera person. Outside of taking a person’s job, it seems kind of neat in theory. The issue was that the camera couldn’t tell the difference between the ball and the bald head, continually focusing on a man standing around not doing much, rather than actually let fans see the action.
To make matters worse Scotland is under strict social distancing measures. With no fans in attendance this was the only ways for fans of Iverness and Ayr United to watch the match, and instead they were treated to 90 minutes of head watching.
Inverness Caledonian Thistle don’t employ a cameraman as their camera is programmed to follow the ball throughout the match. The commentator had to apologise today as the camera kept on mistaking the ball for the linesman’s head... pic.twitter.com/LeKsc2bEj7— Tom Cox (@seagull81) October 24, 2020
Let this be a small moment of zen. We know, at least for now, that robots can’t take all of our jobs — yet.