Was that a 900 or 1080 on the halfpipe? X Games can now ask AI

COLORADO – At the Jan 23-25 Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado, judges will carefully cast their eyes over the athletes, as they have since the first edition of the competition in 1997, scrutinising each spin, flip and grab.

But in 2025, another party will be unofficially weighing in as well: An artificial intelligence (AI) judge.

During the snowboard SuperPipe competitions, video cameras will capture the moves of each athlete, and AI will take that information and provide a score for the routine.

It is a trial run: Humans will still decide the official scores and the medals, as usual, but commentators and TV audiences will see the AI evaluations, too.

Jeremy Bloom, the CEO of X Games and a former freestyle skier, sees AI as a potential “superpower” for judges.

“I would say sometimes humans make mistakes,” he said in an interview.

“That’s not to say the AI won’t make mistakes, too, especially in this early form, but our goal is to give this tool to judges, so that they can use it in their booth.”

Technology has taken on more and more roles policing professional sports. Line judges in tennis have largely given way to electronic calls, cameras make offside rulings in football down to the millimetre, and even Major League Baseball is testing automated strike zones.

But judging and scoring sports like snowboarding have largely remained the domain of humans.

In time, however, AI might become an important tool for judges, not just in snowboarding but also in a host of judged events like diving, surfing and breaking. An AI tool called the Judging Support System has already been used by judges at gymnastics’ world championships.

The International Olympic Committee, in its “AI Agenda” released in 2024, said that “AI can help to reduce human bias in judging and refereeing” and “offer real-time analysis”, though it acknowledged it was “still at the beginning of its AI journey”.

AI could also help the athletes in their training, Bloom said, by providing insights on runs, jumps and how judging works.

He noted that when he was an athlete, he was not permitted to talk to judges, making it difficult to determine which trick would be scored the highest. But the AI tool X Games are using has the ability, Bloom said, “to remember every run in the history of ever”, helping athletes hone both their tricks and runs for higher scores.

So will the day come when AI takes over and puts human judges out of business entirely?

“I don’t think so, personally,” Bloom said. “But I do think that AI in partnership with judges can bring more objectivity to subjective sports, and that’s what’s really important to me.

“Look, sometimes we humans need some help. And if you could give us the ability to see tricks better and see landings more clear and better understand the judging framework, I can use that as a resource as I’m calibrating my scores. Man, that’s pretty cool.” NYTIMES