When we interviewed will.i.am last week, he spoke with little remorse – much excitement, in fact – about the way AI would upend our lives. His message was: Yes, we have every right to be frightened, but this will improve things. It will redistribute the balance of power by creating jobs in the Global South. All of this is (his word) “awesome”.
I’ll tell you what’s not awesome, though. The fact that AI is now replacing one of our great British institutions: that of the Wimbledon line judge. The men and women in Ralph Lauren tailoring standing behind the baseline on Centre Court and shouting – shrieking – “out”, or “fault”, or whatever word it is they’re supposed to say, with a hilarious gull-like screech every time Nick Kyrgios goes long or Novak Djokovic hits a double fault.
What will happen now? “It’s out!” Djokovic will scream. “F*ck off!” Kyrgios will reply. “Hold up,” the umpire will say, “let’s bring in the robot.” I joke: it won’t be nearly as entertaining. More likely it will be a loud buzz (uh-uh) or an automated voice of god saying “denied” in a declamatory tone like something out of Wii sports. It’ll be the Britain’s Got Talent of tennis tournaments, with a robot reconstitution of Simon Cowell holding a finger over a red buzzer ready to clamp down on it at every point. What happens when the ball hits the net? Will they bring back The Voice from Trapped on CBBC? “Oh no," it’ll say, "you’ve failed miserably.”
Worst case scenario, everyone in the stadium wobbles confusingly in their seat, getting up to try and identify a patch on or near the line which they obviously cannot see, whilst the players look at each other with raised eyebrows (“was it out? your call really, I’m not sure”) and wait for the umpire to consult the replay screen. “The ball was called out,” he’ll say. Oh wait, he won’t. It won’t be called out anymore.
I choose to be positive about AI: the benefits it will bring to science, research, cancer prevention, even defence. But losing the line judge is a crying shame – a disgrace, quite frankly – and entirely unnecessary. Is the argument that it will save money? It’s Wimbledon, for heaven’s sake. It made £54 million profit last year. Don’t tell me they’re skint or can’t afford the line judges (who, for the sake of a balanced argument, are paid £5,000 per match).
When it comes to the creative industries, I don’t believe AI will scupper all jobs. Particularly when it comes to writing, I believe (perhaps naively) that demand for human writers, with human stories, will remain high for decades to come. Similarly, I think most people love the line judges. There is demand for the gull-like shriek. Why spoil a good time? The two weeks in summer when the only sounds that matter are the clink of champagne (read: prosecco) glasses and the piercing cries of “fault” and/or “out”, from men and women in navy blazers on All England’s Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club?
Seriously, who can block this? Can Sadiq Khan get involved? Those in charge at Wimbles have clearly taken the view that, if it’s not broke, break it. What next? Are we going to bring back Nadal and Federer as cyborgs?
