EFE Street Competition 09/11/2022
Artificial intelligence is evolving rapidly and every day more and more data is known, something that has also significantly affected the world of sports to the point that some experts are starting to worry about technology doping and how it can happen. affect the health of athletes.
“My main concern is the application of artificial intelligence in sports: data capture from athletes and techniques such as cranial stimulation, which are difficult to detect and have not been classified as doping by organizations such as the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). ) )”, explained Alberto Carrio to EFE, the promoter of a project that aims to analyze the ethical and legal issues of using this technological resource.
According to Carrio, professor of legal philosophy at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, techniques such as cranial stimulation “it is not yet known whether they could have any future harmful effects on athlete health, as occurs with substance doping”.
The Carrio project is funded by the BBVA Foundation and in collaboration with ethicists from other universities, such as Oxford (UK).
“But we must not only protect the health of athletes, but also their rights,” he said. “Their data is being collected by the companies that distribute it to their clubs, who may stop hiring them because they see their performance will decline in three years,” he added.
Therefore, Carrio asked, “at least, there is a regulatory framework.” In this regard, WADA (for its English acronym) is funding two projects in Germany and Canada to find out how artificial intelligence affects doping and what uses should be banned.
“Just as there is a list of prohibited substances, there must be a list of prohibited uses of artificial intelligence”, suggested the UPF professor.
On the other hand, concerns about possible technological doping have not yet reached the State Anti-Doping Agency (CELAD). “Doping is the word that defines the use of a prohibited substance and, in this case, no substance,” Jos Luis Terreros, its director, told EFE. “They are traps that are not within our competence,” he considered.
However, Terreros added that it was a “problem” he was aware of because “it concerned the police and other actors” with ties to CELAD “because of doping issues.” According to him, “it is a matter that the federation has to manage and, in any case, can reach civil or criminal law.”
In the case of football, David Fombella, a BIG DATA consultant at Stratebi who specializes in sports, told EFE that today the “maximum information that can be collected in a match” occurs in the Champions League with 172 million data points.
“There is a lot of data that is provided free of charge to clubs. LaLiga has a system, Mediacoach, which has democratic access, as clubs playing in the Champions League get the same information as those who have just been promoted to Division Two. . But there’s a lot of free data that clubs don’t handle due to a lack of logistical and human capacity,” Fombella said.
This data, in general, comes, according to Fombella, from “four or five major providers, and each costs an average of between 10,000 and 15,000 euros per year. Although there are also 30,000 and even 100,000.”
One way to collect this type of information is through auto GPS that some footballers use, both in matches and in training. But Fombella says that “50% or more of Primera players don’t play with that bib.”
The same information can also be obtained with almost the same quality through Mediacoach as the data collected by the camera. However, Fombella points out that this system has less coverage than chest protectors, which “can even do an electrocardiogram on you.”
The use of this GPS breastplate, to be precise, is one of the artificial intelligence utilities that worries Carrio: “Do the players realize what it means for them to wear it? And if they refuse to do so? Who has access to this data? Where is the athlete’s privacy?
Carrio believes that there will come a time when “a machine will coach the team and make data-driven decisions.” And, going back to the present, the question is still being asked: “And what happens if a coach refuses to heed what the data recommends? Can the club make a decision on the cause?”
Meanwhile, Fombella, who is also the academic co-director of the sports BIG DATA master’s degree at the Sports Data Campus and UCAM, explains that artificial intelligence already has “a way to measure the emotional state of a player and can even tell if he has been out on the pitch, motivated or not. see fatigue with the analysis of the emotions they are experiencing.
In addition, he said that, in the case of Mediacoach, the club looked at their own information and the information of other clubs. “If the analysis of the opposing team, usually includes a report on the physical performance of the opposing player,” he said.
And access to the other team’s data isn’t just used to prepare for the match against that rival. “This is something that a lot of scouts also use. Some clubs invest in international data providers, which give them the information to be able to analyze players from around the world,” explains Fombella.
But what is clear is that artificial intelligence is not only used in football. “The Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA) a year ago invested 1 million euros in BIG DATA and Cloud. And, in cycling, we looked at the past Tour de France how the Jumbo-Visma team, winner of Jonas Vingegaard, monitors the sleep and rest time and nutrition of the cyclists in an extreme way”, concluded the specialist.
Sergio Escudero
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