Where innovation meets inclusivity
AI technology is also playing a significant role in sports.
At the Paris Games, for example, AI is being utilized in various areas, including combating doping, providing athletes with information and interactive services through the AthleteGPT chatbot, and delivering AI-driven language broadcasting and commentary based on real sports anchors.
Anais Carolina Fernandez-Laaksonen, a 19-year-old Finnish student at Tsinghua University with a passion for tennis, highlighted the availability of apps that can be attached to tennis rackets to track metrics and assess strokes for potential issues. She also noted that AI technology helps determine whether shots are in or out in various tournaments.
"So, the sport is fairer. It's left up to the cameras that can see the fine details, rather than humans who make mistakes," she said.
"If you're a judge watching athletes compete all day, it can be very tiring, and you might not have the energy to give a correct score," added Elijah Van Knowles, a 23-year-old US student at SUS who has practiced Chinese kung fu for years.
While acknowledging the benefits of technology in assisting referees with better decisions and reducing their workload, Thomas Mattei, a 28-year-old French graduate from Fudan University, cautioned against completely replacing humans with technology in sports. He emphasized that sports, at their core, revolve around human interaction.
"Technology is kind of denaturing the sport itself and the magic of the effort in the moment, because sport is also about spontaneity and effort being launched," he said.