How Will A.I Affect Football: Watson, Davies, and J.A.R.V.I.S (Conclusion)
The beginnings described by Venkatesh are very similar to the beginnings of the "Watson" project, as described by Joe Bafet, the chief inventor in the emerging technologies division at the giant company "IBM". Of course, football players and officials have become more tolerant and accepting of new technologies now, after 20 years of the Finkelstein experiment. However, doubt still lingers, and there is a greater fear of the unknown.
"Watson" is another application of artificial intelligence, and what makes it scary for some is its terrifying inclusiveness. With the use of virtual reality glasses, you can see a digital version of the match through the eyes of any player on the field, any spectator in the stands, or even from the luxurious viewing rooms in the box seats, with the generosity of access to all of its data and statistics, of course, with the ability to enlarge the image and have full control over the display.
The most important thing is that "Watson" relies on a conversational interface, meaning it can prepare any type of data or footage as soon as it is requested in colloquial language. As artificial intelligence, it adapts even to the different terms and names used in football around the world.
In short, we are talking about an application that is similar to "Siri" and "ChatGPT", only much better, smarter, more specialized in football, and seemingly more humane, as it reminds us of the original "Watson", the faithful assistant to Sherlock Holmes.
In a live experiment, Rob Tanner, editor of "The Athletic," was able to issue commands such as "I want all set-piece clips from the game" or "Show me all of Jamie Vardy's goals from open play this season," and his experience was fully showcased in a video clip as he wore virtual reality glasses, reminiscent of a scene from Tony Stark's interactions with his supercomputer "Jarvis" in Marvel movies, in which he creates a new weapon or a time-travel equation.
The experience was different with "Davies," the interface created by data scientists at "American Soccer Analysis" to evaluate players everywhere in the world using the statistics and digital analysis available about them.
Named after Canadian left-back Alphonso Davies in honour of his rocket rise and the way Bayern Munich officials discovered him before signing him, "DAVIES" is an acronym for "Determining Added Value of Individual Effectiveness including Style of play," which is another variation on the "Goals Added" model that assesses all defensive and offensive player actions based on a single, important criterion: how much they help the team score goals against the opponent and prevent the opponent from scoring.
The model developed by Sam Goldberg and Mike Imbroglio first appeared in 2020, and as with any new qualitative statistical model, Messi came out on top of the world's players in most of the seasons he was tested, specifically in the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 seasons.
The fact is, there are many tools for a variety of tasks that used to require an army of analysts and scouts to accomplish in the past. But the lesson here is that our initial conception of AI applications as a step towards full automation of the game may have been misguided. It's not just a matter of replacing Robert Downey Jr. with Guardiola, but imagine the latter utilizing the likes of "Davis" and "Watson" to do all the complex calculations he doesn't master, providing him with accurate data on each situation and how that can maximize his impact on his players, and elevate his persona on the pitch to unprecedented levels. It's something we can't even imagine at this point.
The potential of AI is immense, and it's clear that it has a role to play in the future of football. However, it's important to recognize that AI can't simply replace the human element of the game. It's a tool that should be used to enhance and support the decision-making process, rather than to replace it. As with any technological advance, we need to approach AI in football with a critical eye and understand its limitations as well as its potential benefits. Only then we can truly leverage its power to improve the game and bring it to new heights.
Just imagine Guardiola getting clear-cut final answers in all controversial matters, and controlling all the details by himself, without the need for long exhausting meetings with his immense team, and without his immense team in the first place, which would often turn into a supercomputer called "Arteta," for example. Then ask yourself the question that Filton, Buffet, Goldberg, and Imborgio forgot to ask themselves; would that make him a better coach because he maximizes his advantages, or the opposite because -at the same time- he doubles his flaws?
Sources
"Goal!".. The 22 Best Football Movies - The Hollywood Reporter
"I wish the fans would find themselves in it." Why is Nick Hornby's memoir "Pitch Fever" the most popular? Goal
Artificial intelligence may be about to change football talent scouting - Forbes
How does artificial intelligence facilitate the detection of players in football? - Forbes
AiScout - Official Website
The app that hopes to revolutionize football! CNN
Arsene Wenger highlights the shortcomings of Europe's current academy system - ESPN
football remodeling; Why have transfers, scouts, and coaches steeped themselves in data science? - The Athletic
Henry Stott - Linked In
The Fink Tank
Can computers teach us how to build our counterattacks? - The Athletic
"Watson" .. the application of artificial intelligence that puts you directly on the field and was able to predict the transfer of Riyad Mahrez to Manchester City! - The Athletic
We present "Davies"... a work interface for identifying and evaluating talents around the world - American Soccer Analysis
AI's are cool stuff that was created and I believe it is very useful and helpful to mankind
The limiting factor with AI or any data set (and that’s really what AI is just a massive database with a fancy search function) is that it requires you to ask the right question to get an insightful answer in the first place.
So you could argue the people element becomes even more important if you are going to fully utilise that data as an advantage.
I think Pep and the rest will still need their big teams to ensure they are asking the right questions and that’s before you even consider analysing the answer and putting it into practice with living, organic beings. Haaland will be a lot easier. You can just plug him in and upload the data …
Lol, Haaland will be a beast regardless of the data it seems.