The world has gone mad. Or at least, some of us have gotten old enough for that to be our de facto state of thinking (and one look at the news seems to back up that opinion). More specifically, it has gone AI mad. Presumably, by now, you have seen that X Games has both trialed AI judging and that X Games CEO, Jeremy Bloom, has co-founded an AI judging company, The OWL AI, with ex-Google AI honcho Josh Gwyther.

Except for the occasional outburst, I'm generally pretty happy to mosey my way through life, not caring about much. But the conversation about AI X Games judging, and the launch of OWL, essentially BY X Games, and the more general involvement of AI in a sport I hold near and dear, had certainly got me thinking. Then, this article, in a publication that at least nominally represents our sport, popped up in my feed. It's well written, it does its job of reporting the news, but it's so damn beige. It's the simple, yet banal kind of acceptance that ultimately leads to shit hitting the fan. After all, this is something that could plug one of the final airholes in the coffin of the sport we all love.

It's difficult, in this conversation, to isolate the case of skiing because this is a far wider issue. And of course, for now, it's all "intended to be deployed alongside the judges, not in place of them." The same is largely true of most things being discussed under the AI moniker. It's always 'we're going to aid humans, not steal their jobs'. It's a question of, 'CAN we teach AI to do this?' 'Can ChatGPT replace writers?' 'Can generative image AIs replace photographers and videographers?' The answer, to all, is a relatively obvious, yes. At least from a technical standpoint. It might take 6 months, it might take 5 years, but AI generation will get there. But ultimately, that is nothing new. We have always been able to, for example, duplicate paintings in a way that is more or less 'perfect'. Certainly close enough to the original to fool the human eye. Sure, it took a talented human to do it, but even so, we don't give it any value. Because it is the original, human creation that we place value on.

For the sake of interest, I asked ChatGPT what the problem would be with introducing AI judging to sports. It coughed up the following list:

1. Sports Are More Than Data

Great performances often carry an emotional resonance—style, grit, risk, crowd connection. These are human elements, hard to quantify, and sometimes even meant to transcend the rulebook. Reducing performance to data risks sterilizing what makes sports inspiring.

2. Bias in, Bias out

AI only learns from data it’s fed—and that data comes from human judges, past scores, and historical precedent. If that past was biased (and it often was), the AI learns and amplifies those same biases, just with a veneer of “objectivity.”

3. Opacity & Accountability

When a human judge blows a call, we can ask them why. When AI makes a controversial call, who do you question? Most AI models are black boxes. Athletes and fans can’t appeal to an algorithm or understand its decision-making logic.

4. AI Can't Understand Context

An AI might rank a technically perfect routine higher than a riskier, more creative one. But sports often reward innovation, difficulty, and story. AI lacks contextual judgment—the understanding of what's at stake, what it meant, or how it changed the sport.

5. It Undermines the Human Element of Sport

Spectators and athletes love the drama, the debate, and yes—even the imperfection of judged sports. Part of the thrill is knowing that it’s not always perfect. Making everything perfect may also make it boring.

So far, so generic (just like the skiing will be). But it's a pretty good summary. It covers the main objections in the NS thread. Quite clearly, ChatGPT has enough 'intelligence' to figure out what a human might want to hear. All of the above are valid to greater and lesser degrees. And I have no doubt that you could teach an AI to judge in a way that might nominally be accurate and fair. But why would you want to?

Ultimately, who really gives a fuck if a judge prefers the way Alex Hall grabs blunt to Andri Ragettli or Nick Goepper on the day. The wrong skier gets the wrong coloured medal that week. Is 'correcting' that worth the soul of the sport? At the moment, when it happens, and it does, the world keeps spinning. After all, the next week might be different. Because, in subjective sports, fashions change. There is no such thing as 'correct'. At one point, Andri's switch dub bio rotations were unbeatable. He still stomps them, and still, virtually nobody else can match them. But then 'opp carves' and 'bring backs' took center stage. In other words, the fashion changed, and Andri stopped winning. Now, I would argue he gets underscored. But if you program something like that into an AI and let it judge, it might stay that way forever. Just by solidifying criteria, you end up with an even more deeply ingrained 'correct' way of 'free'skiing. We could lose the last elements of freedom that are (just about) hanging on.

Why would you want to invite AI to the playing field at all? Sport is a human playground. Art is a human playground. Skiing is, or at least can be, both. As I understand it, the average desktop running a chess program can easily beat the greatest of Grand Masters. A game between two powerful computers would be far of a far 'higher' lever than anything humans could muster up. But almost nobody would, or does, care.

Freestyle sports are about expression; in fact, judging them numerically in the first place was arguably a step too far. Jeremy Bloom was a moguls skier, a sport that has already paid the price for diminishing or removing the human element, adding standardisation. For freeskiing, this is another step along that road. Sure we've been saying 'it's becoming aerials' since virtually day one. And we've been right too. At least in the sense that fewer and fewer people are watching. Fewer and fewer skis are being sold. Skiers are getting paid less and less money. These are all things that have already happened.

Yes, the 'current' proposed judging will also include humans. Are we supposed to believe the judges won't be at all influenced by the AI? Then they talk about adding it to coaching, too. Why? To make sure the generic is instilled early? To what end? What is the point of our sport if it's not creativity? If it's not human? The Freeskier article concludes, "No one is arguing to let AI decide on the next best film at IF3, but if we can pump some greater level of objectivity into competitions with the guidance of the best judges and athletes in the world, that seems like a step in the right direction."

What the fuck are you talking about? It's a subjective sport; a lack of objectivity is the entire point. Of course, we can still watch ski movies or alternative events, for now. And watch as more and more dollars are drained out of that side of the sport. The real question is, who actually wants any of this to happen? Aside from the CEO, the guy calling the shots and pocketing the dollars, who has a controlling stake in the AI judging system being launched. This year, it seems we can look forward to watching Team Toyota face off against Team Hot Pockets (probably) in the X Games League, judged by an AI. Yeah, that's going to feel real 'free'. At this point, we might as well watch people play SSX and call it good. Oh, wait, they already did broadcast video games instead of slopestyle at X Games, carry on then.