 Well, thank you all so much for joining us in today's event, which is brought to you by Future Tense, a partnership of Slate, New America and Arizona State University that examines technology, public policy and society. My name is Mia and I am the managing editor of Future Tense, and we are really excited for today's conversation, which is going to focus on how tech innovations from performance enhancing tools to video assisted refereeing are shaping sport, and also how those changes are seeping over into other areas of our lives. And I wanted to flag that this conversation is also part of a range of ASU wide sparkies cup activities. And so these are conversations and events that Arizona State University is organizing between now and the world cup and we hope that you will continue to participate in and more of those events as well you can find more information by Googling sparkies cup ASU. So for today's conversation we are so lucky to be joined by a team of star panelists. And to start we have with us Kristen Collins who's an expert in sport technology and innovation with a long career, applying new tech in the field of athlete performance. Kristen recently served as the Olympic High Performance Director for Beijing 2022, as well as a high performance advisor for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. And for us is Dave Gaston, a foundation professor and founding director of the ASU school for the future of innovation and society. He has served as the principal investigator and director of the Center for nanotechnology and society, and is widely published on research and development policy technology assessment public participation in science and technology, and the politics of science policy. We have with us Noah Rubin, a former professional tennis player whose impressive career includes a junior Wimbledon title. Noah is also the founder and CEO of behind the racket, which is a community that allows tennis players of all levels to share their mental health experiences on their own terms. Up next is Christina uncle of our certified pro referee and former former FIFA referee who has been officiating soccer for more than 20 years. She's a laws of the game analyst for CBS sports, and previously analyzed the 2019 World Cup for Fox Sports. She's also a litigation and sports law attorney. Finally, moderating today's conversation is Andres Martinez, the editorial director of future tense and a professor at ASU Walter Cronkite School of journalism and mass communication, relevant to this conversation and this is also working on a book on sport and globalization. I wanted to remind everyone once again that you can and should send your questions for all of our panelists. Throughout the conversation you should see a box to the right of the video that you're watching right now, and then we'll use our last few minutes to tackle those questions. So, Andres over to you. Thank you Mia. Thanks everybody for being here. Thank you for inviting I confess to my fellow panelists before we started that this was probably going to be the most fun I have this week. This is like a great opportunity when you invent a work excuse to talk to really interesting people about something you're very interested in. So that's great and I also did. I also wanted to go back to something Mia mentioned at Arizona State University which is one of the three partners in future tense. We are doing a whole series of activities on campus. From residential life experiences and creating fan zones and what having watch parties in our stadium to more substantive panels and the like, all around the World Cup and in the lead up to the cutter World Cup. And this is a commitment on the part of the University leadership to recognize the global significance of a World Cup and the fact that for once for a series of curious reasons and we're we're having men's World Cup that is not during the pandemic. And it's during our academic year and so we wanted to take full advantage of that and it's really fun to be one of many colleagues that are thinking about about that and it's an experience that's really appreciated by our international students and it's also one that's that's really appreciated by our American students who are kind of embracing the world of sport these days in ways that you know we used to be a little bit more domestic focused. So, this is really an exciting topic for future tense because oftentimes future tense examines how technology impact society, and there are few areas of society that engage broader cross sections of folks in sport. At times it's really interesting to see how issues that play out in society manifests themselves on the playing field and how fans react to them. We can probably talk about a lot of issues including non tech issues, where that has been the case, but in the issue of sport I think it's really interesting to see how much of the governance of our sports do we want to see an outsource to technology. And I feel like we're in this interesting transitional moment. We're seeing that in world soccer and I mentioned the World Cup peg because the cutter World Cup is going to introduce yet another layer of technology assisted learning on on the offside rules and we don't need to get too much detail on that now, but it's yet another step in the evolution, the integration of technology into the referring of a sport that might have been among the more resistant, I'd say to tech referring and some others it's interesting the cultural differences among sports that's one of the things that I want to talk about. But to set the scene for today's conversation I just want to harken back to my weekend, where I was watching arsenal leads, or I was, I thought I was sitting down to watch arsenal leads on a big arsenal fan in the English Premier League. The game started and not two minutes had gone by when they had to stop playing. And, you know, you're sitting across the ocean wondering what's going on. It turns out the there was a power outage that somehow affected the calm systems that the that the referees use for all of their video assisted refereeing the bar system. The goal line technology was affected. And it was this funny moment where, you know, if you were following social media and I'm sure lots of fans in the stands were thinking, we have we can see the ref. He's got his whistle. We've got the linesman with the with their flags, like, can we just play the game and referee the way we did for more than a century before we started having these fancy toys. So on the hold, the players had to go back into the locker room. It was a 40 minute break, you know, as a worldwide audience people just waiting, and then they sorted it out. And sure enough, the bar ended up having a huge impact on the on that very game awarded a penalty upon the review that the ref on the field initially had not given took another one away we send it a red card. And a lot of, you know, jokes after the game that well maybe it was a good thing that they had waited. I just thought that that that one match illustrated a lot of the tensions, and the sort of cross currents that we face, as we kind of negotiate this blending factor in governance and refereeing, and the tech aspect, and I want to kick this off by turning to, I can't think of a better person to, to hear from on these issues as a as an attorney, as a as a as a referee and as an analyst for CBS Sports Christina for joining us. I know it's not a very direct question I'm asking but I'm just asking you to sort of react to kind of, and maybe tell us a little bit about where you feel we are in this moment. In terms of this hybrid referring blend of like the technology and the human factor and then we can flesh that out but I just wondering for your, you know, would love your initial reaction to that question. Definitely thank you for having me. I think you hit it on the head and I love being in this environment not that I don't like being in other environments where we can have a little bit more philosophical, you know, kind of really digging into things that are a little bit beyond what we just see on the field. You hit it I think really good on the head when we say, you know, sports and society and where that integration is and how they kind of blend into each other for me, having been part of the first implementation of the AR in a game which was major league soccer in 2017. Premier League nobody else wanted to implement it so, although we claim it's our claim to fame that we were the first league to implement it the reality is nobody else wanted to try they wanted them less to have the growing pains with it and arguably I would say we are actually one of the biggest leagues in the world with the implementation of the AR and funny fact because we don't use those lines that track the second last defender so you do not have offside by the toenails so it's been a more for me and interesting learning the system in the process from an standpoint of to your point for at that point about 25 years and about 20 years I'd been officiating on the field, using skills experience, not having a second look knowing at Portland that that monitors monsters and there's 45,000 fans who are reviewing me and I'm the only person who can't look at the monitor, and I'm the only person who can change the decision. I can't look at it but mind you don't get wrong we always have secret signals to the system referee that wasn't on camera to be like hey look at that board real quick. Let me know. But now we take a look and now that we have implemented technology is something that funny enough not even the officials were asking for and so when you're having that question of, where is this balance and where is this fight the people that are complaining the most or the people that were complaining the most that we didn't have it right. I'm a romantic at heart when it comes to sports specifically football soccer got you or whatever you want to call it right. And I'm a romantic a heart meaning in sport that's that's the pleasure of it right there's highs and there's lows and there's overcoming, you know the hardship right so if I go to the novel romances and that's what I see sport. Yeah, yet now everyone wanted it because it's a billion doll multi billion dollar industry from jobs to the players themselves at least in football it's astronomical outside the United States. How much more of a moneymaker that is in some of our top professional leagues here in the United States between basketball and baseball and American football. Is this intersection of where it was clamor for claim they want us to be 100% as referees, which we all know scientifically is impossible to be 100% as officials, but that's the request is for perfection. Now they're implementing technology they have slowly as your kind of point the first one was the beepers on our arms, allowed us for off sides and communication with the system referees, then turn into the headsets, then turn into goal line technology, then turn into VR which now there's a second subset which is VR light sounds like Bud Light like it's less calories and it truly is it's less people. And that's for other groups that can't afford a full onset of a million dollar, you know, multi million dollar system. And now as you kind of briefly mentioned it hits on semi automated offside technology which here we can all dork about because I have never used the word in sport limb tracking technology where they're actually tracking every single body part of all 22 players on the field at all times with, I think it's 25 cameras right now in Champions League and then I think World Cup it's going to be about 35 cameras so that they know where every single person is, so they can be an instant, just for offside decisions to determine whether there's a goal or potential penalty. It's very astronomical kind of where we've gotten so I'm with you. You have a tracker to right as part of that system. Correct. So that's another interesting company right because it keeps getting deeper and deeper Champions League there is no tracker in the ball. And in World Cup there is a tracker in the ball and so Champions League this fall is the first league first any league to use semi automated offside technology in it. And the only real difference is knowing the velocity of when the ball was hit, which will allow us to know when the first point of contact was from the defender who last played the ball to the individual in an offside position. So honestly I would argue that maybe it's not going to be that detrimental or worth that much money but hey who am I. But it's just really really funny how, you know, seeing it from a perspective as an official, as to your point, sitting there watching the leads arsenal game and me being a leads fan you being an arsenal fan and we're just kind of laughing I mean the VR recommendations went either way so we're all equally hurt by that is that the officials were there and for the longest time before we made those decisions on the field. And truly what technology has proven, although not many people look at it from this perspective is that technology at the highest level reinforces how many decisions referees get correct. Right, everyone's always looked at the most controversial decision here's what in how did we mess this up blah blah blah, but no one's looking at all the decisions that are being made without the use of technology and or the weeks they check completes meaning supporting the decision on the field. That's kind of another interesting component of it at that level when you have that quick of an instant a split of a second to make a decision, using experience knowledge and skill that you've had for over 20 years that you've had to make a lot of errors to get to that point. Right, it's been a very interesting hybrid and cross and if I could have a dollar for every time someone told me in this football world, especially with covering champions like the game is gone, because we now have VR and VR is ruining it I'm like with all due respect you guys are always talking about controversial decisions anyways handling is never going to go away. So it for me it's very fascinating how we've clamored for it now we don't want it. Then we want it when it happens when there's a hand of God play right that the referee will never be able to see because of a perspective and an angle. And I think it needs to be an acceptance from the players the coaches spectators that there's always room for error, regardless of whether it's a referee whether it's the players whether it's, it's never going to be completely eradicated and until we get to that point. There's always going to be debate whether technology is over influencing the game. It is funny how we demand perfection from refereeing but would never expect it from a player. But let me quickly ask you on the, because when it comes to the the unease that I sense in this transition. I should have also mentioned, and the arsenal leads game was a was a good example of this although you can you can see it every weekend where when a call on the field needs to be reviewed. And I suppose somebody whispers in the refs here, they, there's this very performative act of the official on the field going to the sideline monitor. You know doing the symbol, I now do this in my regular life to whenever whenever I want to. And they go to the sideline monitor. Clearly that's somebody you know the Court of Appeals, the bar saying, we think you got this wrong. And I've, I've never seen, I'm not sorry. I'm not saying it has not happened. I have never seen, and I do watch way more Premier League soccer than I should admit to. I've never seen the ref going to the monitor and then saying, you know what, I'm going to stick to my guns I was right like it fans now are conditioned to know that that means going to be reversed and yet we still have this. Often three or four minute performance of going like we're not comfortable enough. We the whoever the collective is of having that Court of Appeals in the year in the bar room, just overturning like we still want to defer to the judgment of the official on the field. And why, why is that and do we still need to do that or wouldn't it just be a lot more efficient for somebody to say hey, we understand you didn't see this but you got it wrong trust us and let's and just reverse the call automatically. Why haven't we gotten to that point. Yeah, you hit that because major league baseball does that right so they the ums go over the head set on and they're like hey don't look at me I'm going to get the decision here after right. But there was one of the principles in creating the VR policy ifab which is the international football advisory board which is the one that actually creates the laws FIFA is the application of it. And so in the instruction on the officiating side, they were very, very deliberate on this in the principles specifically stating that we, the core centerpieces, the center referee, similar to system referees just giving input will always have the final decision on this for transparency sake. Right the biggest, the biggest threat to sports is any type of match fixing, right. Anyway, we can stay away from the appearance of even if it's not happening but the appearance of match fixing saying oh so and so is in their ear because they want, you know, enter to win right or you know you vent this to win or you know legaries there or you know, you know, Barcelona's president is the one talking into them because he keeps trying to jump into the locker room right, like, anyway we can get away from the appearance of in proprietary or that somebody else that may not be the VAR and have those jokes that can attack the credibility of the officials on the centerpiece from the foundational side, as well as from those decisions that are being made. That is, like I said very more, you know, philosophical maybe jurisprudence wise, but it was taking a look at why we send the officials for the very great issues right the ones that are in the, you know, and they actually, you know, in the opinion of the referee that was actually room from the laws which I used to love that one because I was like well my opinions this that means that must be supported. Right, but they specifically move that away but they still want the center official like similar system referees as we always say only give us information, and from that information then we apply and they're huge piece of our team. VAR was that additional component they're just similar to sister referees, they give us that information and as we have still seen with the system. There are still some errors that are provided and have seen where recommendations aren't taken and being trust me in that VAR booth it's black it's dark it's before it used to be in some little shed outside the stadium now it's centralized here domestically in Atlanta, similar to what the NBA does, and you can lose the feel of the game. All right, you can maybe see a point of contact, you can say hey there's point of contact hey it was by studs, but what you might not be able to fully appreciate is this, even though you play the speed force on regular play is whether truly or not like in that context right that that football understanding the feeling anyone who's officiated any game understands that there's some calls that are just expected right. I would say in the football world it's the bicycle kick and you actually hit somebody in the head right we're never going to call that until you hit somebody in the head and I know that doesn't isn't normal but a bicycle kick is a glorious goal that we try not to take away because the football world wants those that happen. And when you're in that VAR booth and sometimes you're isolated, you have to always also remember before you make a recommendation. What does it feel like being on that field and having been in those things and being able to empathize and understand. And that's why not everyone is very good in the VR booth, but when it comes to numbers it comes to demand of referees it comes to demand of taking referees and putting them in the VR booth to provide recommendation who've officiated that level at least has a football understanding to appreciate that. That's where you know we still want that referee to go to the monitor for a controversial decision. Yep, to go ahead and provide that guidance. Thank you that that's really interesting and I'm glad that you, you touched on the NBA and you mentioned baseball because certainly, I think the conversation is a lot richer when when we do kind of make some of these comparisons and think about how different sports are handling this and know I want to turn to you because tennis seems, I mean, from the outside correct me if I'm wrong seems pretty advanced and having incorporated technology and, and I forget when we started having Hawkeye call a lot a lot of the shots. I love playing tennis. Half the time I don't know if the ball was in or out and I don't have Hawkeye in my community courts but tell us like your perspective as a tennis player of how you felt that integration went in tennis and where we're at and what what can we learn from the tennis case study. Yeah, tennis is an extremely interesting scenario because unlike soccer football or a lot of these other sports there's no contact you know it's fairly black and white with how the sport goes along. It's whether or not a ball clip the line or not and that's a matter of I mean we say it's a game of inches but millimeters at time so the technology has improved drastically you know what we knew Hawkeye was was at the top level of the sport at the US Opens, where it was only on the main stage because it was super expensive. And again with unique ability for tennis, you don't have one field, you know at these events you're looking at multiple courts sometimes the US Open I mean, you know we're looking right now at this Hawkeye live situation. It's on about 18 courts or so so it's it's very difficult to implement this, even at the top level the sport so you know here I am, you know playing the initial level professional tennis which is considered the futures and we were just fortunate enough to have somebody walking around and hopefully catch a call that my opponent was trying to you know take one away from me at that point in time but you know as I was going through you started seeing more and more integration of people on court because it's expensive to get, you know, three or four people to be calling these lines throughout every match. So if you're talking, you know at the challenger tour which is the second level up from futures. At that point I had three line judges calling the far lines, the serve which you know are going anywhere from 120 to 140 miles per hour. You hopefully had a nice night's rest the night before to catch those calls and you know it was a very difficult situation so for us where there was no excuse me no contact. We always looked up to us open be like, what is it going to take for us to have something like that. So we don't have to worry that in a moment when I'm hitting a forehand on the run, going 110 miles per hour, and the line judges also moving on the ball because he's calling two lines that I'm hoping that man or woman makes a correct call. I mean that is just a lot of pressure to put on everybody and of course, led to outburst that, sadly I was a part of that times and I admit to be on the wrong side of that. But it was, you know, is forcing upon them to make the right call. And then you have the chair empire, that's the one that's calling out the score, and kind of leading the show and it was, you know, their prerogative to say hey, you know, they made the correct call the laundry did the right thing that ball was out or to overrule that call so it's a very unique situation with how Hawkeye has transitioned into this Hawkeye live where at the top of the sport now. It took a second for players to get used to but you hit a ball. It missed the the sideline by a millimeter to and you hear a automated woman say out, and that was the first introduction we didn't even know I mean it took a while every time I said it turned around I was like what was that behind me. It was actually a voice I did not. It was actually a voice and then they said they could have put any voice upon it but they stick with one they stick with one for the first couple years just to get everybody acclimated. But it took a while and, and I think the other interesting aspect of tennis is it's known to be a traditional sport that has that country club feel to it. And I think, if anybody's watched Wimbledon, you have the line judges all dressed in their whites and they look great and and there's some like Christina was saying the romance to it. There's definitely a part of that in sports you know we don't have the contact necessarily but having the people there, and now almost removing those jobs and you know there's almost no need for them besides the romance of it. It's been a lot for not only fans to handle, but also players within the sport. There is this part of it that it's like, kind of feels empty out there, you know, we are, we have the chair empire who's leading the show. Still calling the score out for the fans who are part of it. But that's really it I mean we actually don't even need the chair empire you know we can play basically a whole match on our own scores on its own calling the lines that's it I mean I'm not touching my opponent unless we're shaking at the end of the match so it becomes a fairly straightforward process. As well as we are now looking to see how other entities within tennis are integrating it so within, let's say the French tennis Federation which is known to hold rolling arrows in Paris that's on clay. They were reluctant to put this into their system they said hey, we're a clay court, you can actually see where the ball lands. Why is there any need to, you know how this automated. Of course, once this was going through it and it was, you know, had a few chair empires get down from the chair to look at the mark and well, you know it hit the line so it actually shows a little bit of a sliver in between the line and the ball and you're like well that doesn't make sense because if there's a sliver in between the line the ball should mean that it's out. And then we started to figure out that there are some definite issues, even within clay court tennis. And then you have grass, which also has integrated recently but clay was the biggest one because they said hey, we have we have ball marks, what is the need to put in this system which is fairly expensive, especially on all our courts. There's no need and finally, you know, needed a new technology Fox 10 was one of the initial is the initial clay court technology it's called true bounce. So instead of Hawkeye which uses cameras to almost reenact where the ball took off off the racket. Fox 10 is using video integration to actually show where the ball lands to show how the ball flattens as well. That's a big deal of not just where it lands how it flattens out with the speed and that shows where it touches the line. It's very interesting. I thought you were going to say that the, the French opens issue with Hawkeye was the, that the voice was making the calls in English and maybe that one. It's interesting. It's interesting to hear you say that all these calls in tennis are all binary the balls either in or out and obviously that's a very hard call when it's like right. The question of millimeters but at the end of the day it is binary. It's kind of, and you don't have the questions of intent with the handball or, you know, the bicycle kick, you know, is it really high is in danger and other player. And I guess the analogy in the football soccer world to what happens in tennis is the goal line technology and in fact I think it's also Hawkeye. That that is one binary call that where it was incorporated right away the stakes were so high because you had glaring you know balls crossing the line or not crossing line reps couldn't see. And that's an interesting case where like the technology was incorporated without much pushback I don't feel and it's pretty automatic and the refs watch either buzzes or doesn't and fans are very accepting of that kind of a little bit like, like in tennis. I think a lot of what we're talking about here is we're trying to remove like the margin of error. It's like this demand maybe you know Christina mentioned the amounts of money involved in the stakes and like we're turning everything into a science and maybe there's this tension with the romance where we used to feel that, you know, the human element and there was a certain fatalism to the fact that some calls went your way some didn't and maybe in the long run it evens out or that's just part of the sport, but we seem to be removing that. So welcome your reaction to that and then are there parallels to be drawn to us trying to remove any kind of margin of error and sort of fatalistic romance from the athletes performance to I mean we're talking about technology influencing but then there's also the athlete performance and how, how do we think differently about technology in both those realms. Yeah, well thank you and thank you for having me. Great discussions here. Really, when we talk about accuracy, obviously everybody wants to be to have the balls be accurate, but then you look at the the sometimes you're sacrificing flow sometimes you're sacrificing, you know, some teams are focused on fast movement of play and others maybe want to slow it down so so what when you when you bring in technology. And especially on the early days it's getting quicker and faster and more efficient but you you you absolutely have to think about the flow of the game the art of the game itself, and how do you resolve that issue of that slow down I think again people want accuracy but they want to keep that flow. Now when we look at technology and Olympic sport and soccer of courses is also Olympic sport, but you have the early days of corruption I would say that's a figure skating boxing, the potential for gymnastics. And so a lot of the tech in those sports came out to divide the decision making to validate these movements, and it was quite accepted by people because they felt like okay this could help alleviate some of the big swings by nations and in their voting or the way they score certain skills or drills. And then that moved into, and this is a really interesting point is in those sports. It's been 100% like they're they're they're all for it because they do feel like it helps alleviate a potential corruptive environment. But now people have are having to switch their training to understand that what is the system, where's the system coming from is it visual is it timing is it. And then the way they train adapts to that system so you let's say figure skating, you know where the cameras are so if you're going to do a rotation you better do it started at this angle. And then the system will accurately see that you completed, you know three rotations and not. So you're really the good ones, the Olympic medalists, they really hone into where are we competing, where's the system set up, how. They make sure that it works for me and not against me, and they train according to the system that's in place, and so that's a whole different mentality originally the system was important to be accurate. But now it's about how do you not trick the system but but really make sure that the system catches what it needs to catch and this could be in freestyle aerials can be in snowboard half pipe but can be. It can be gymnastics it can be boxing it can be the combat sports, you know there's a whole long list of sports where technology has been introduced on a judging standpoint. And then you brought up Devon Allen, and you know his his issue 110 hurdles at the world championships and I happen to be there. I would like to watch someone train their whole life for a particular moment, and then to be disqualified. Rightfully wrongfully, you know you're one and done and you're, you're out. You know, at one point, you explain what happened so the gun went off and then but he was still as I could use. You know to be honest, I, it's been a while it was a few months ago so, but I just remembered more the devastation and that this was a system that had multiple disqualifications on a given day, and the most important moments of people's careers, and whether the system was at fault whether he was at fault visually when you watch frame by frame, you could not see his movement. So, when you look to validate that, but then live. What are the, what are the referees do, like they have to remove the athlete from the field to play. And, you know, there's no catch to this so you know it's an imperfect science as well as as one feels like it's perfect. It's that's life changing at times when you look at that one moment. And so, you know, we just have to make sure we get it correct. But, but my point is is, is, you know, you have a competition the flow of the competition the energy of the competition. Those, those are subjective factors that have to be played in it, especially in loud arenas when you're waiting for one sensor noise. And, you know, if you can't even see the infraction by video. It didn't really happen but again it stops the whole system, then everybody, you know, it changes the game. And on our side we train for that, you know we train with those systems so there is less room for error on the athlete side. But it is evolving it's not going away. It's just that we all need to evolve together I think. Yeah, it's a cautionary tale about how we, we were getting a lot more precision, but then we can lower ourselves into thinking that these systems are infallible, and there's still perhaps a gap there. I think it would be a good segue into talking about, you know, how, in your mind is somebody who thinks about how we govern technology and what we discern from that. So these debates mirror things happening in the rest of society what does it mean for the rest of us like, you know, I was shocked the last time I came into the country they now have this system where I didn't have to show my passport or interact with a human it was all the facial recognition. We get speeding tickets in the mail from cameras, but obviously we're nowhere near having like court disputes settled by AI as opposed to a human judge although there's a lot of technology there. There's an AI system telling, you know, us what to do vis a vis the situation Ukraine I mean you can think of any kind of number of crazy scenarios where you may or may not use technology but again sports is a great way of kind of like really focusing the mind on these tradeoffs and, and where, where do you see sport being relative to other aspects of our lives and in terms of integration of technology. And it's incredible to follow these deeply experienced and knowledgeable other speakers. The I see the experience with sport is being deeply consonant with the other kinds of experience with similar technologies because these technologies of course don't come out of nowhere. They don't come without the characteristics of the values that were built into the technologies themselves even before they were applied and perhaps imbued with the values that are brought out in their specific applications and sport. I want to start to answer your question word deeply by referring to the work of a French philosopher Bruno Latour, who died just 10 or 11 days ago. The tour talked about in his work, what he called actor network theory, which basically conceptually put human actors, and the things that we would not normally think of as actors but that we normally think of as objects that he called objects that were incapable in our normal view of providing intention, but nevertheless were allied with human actors in a network that actually was important for describing what the outcome was. In the case of, you know, the, the technology say in in soccer the network looks something at least initially, like what was previously described about the the referee and the cameras and the, the limb tracking and whether it's in the ball or not in the ball. But what this network perspective gets you to think about. First is, who is actually in the network and who is outside of the network of the technology that's being implemented are the people who are included or excluded in the network actually involved in the choice of what technologies are going to be deployed and how they're going to be deployed. And therefore, who is the technology actually for, and who is the game actually for. So, you know we heard a little bit in, in Noah's conversation about, you know, the, you know, the technology was only on some courts and did it go to clay courts and how did it go to clay courts with the World Cup technology yes it may be in the World Cup stadiums. Certainly not in high school fields and in school kid fields. Is this the same game that we're actually playing I remember when I was a schoolboy soccer player, and you know I was awed by the fact that we called this the law, rather than the rules. And it took me a while before I got to the point where it was okay to break the law for the purposes of the game. And, you know, of course we see that all the time in in professional soccer professional football, where people take the law into their own hands do things that are against the law for the purposes of their game and their team. And that's an expected part of the game there are strategic fouls. And then raises questions about well, how does the law evolve in conjunction with how the technology evolves. Have we revisited the way we write the laws of soccer, such that they're cognizant of the fact that we have this new ability to observe. Is there any question there that we should revisit. When we call it the law. There's also another really interesting thing that crops up in my intellectual field of science studies that there's a another scholar by the name of Langdon winner, who basically doesn't analogize but but identifies the law with technology legislation with technology in the sense that these are two things that people live with and through and they govern our ability to do what we perceive as is is right in the world. And, and what we want to do that's that's good in the world and that if we accept the idea that with legislation. We have certain norms, democratic norms of making legislation, maybe we should have certain democratic norms of making technologies. And that only in this case punctuates the question of who is the technology actually for, and have they had a voice in the choice of that technology in these particular instances of their application to sport. And then I'll conclude just with another really weird thing that comes out of Kristen's remarks about the, the watching it in slow motion and the watching it in real time. And again, these technologies are all over the place video technology in law enforcement. And as you mentioned, you know, with overhead and traffic lights, but also on police body cams, and also with bystanders. And so if you go back now, basically 30 years in the United States to the LA riots, and the beating of Rodney King, which was captured on YouTube, and when you watched it at full speed you could not believe that these officers were not guilty of some horrible crime they were beating this guy with their batons. But then when it got to trial, and you slowed it down frame by frame, and you tried to create an accountability line from a police officer to his specific baton to a specific reaction by Rodney King's body to legal accountability, it fell apart. And so yes, we always have to keep in mind that the technologies, even if we're seeing it with our own eyes, slow motion real time frame by frame. It may not be telling us the truth. Thank you. There's a lot to unpack there but Christina I'm really, I'd love to just pose to you the question that Dave Rose brought up about. You need to revisit sometimes the technology seems to call for a revisiting of the laws of the game. I, and it's funny you brought bring that up Dave I always think that that's a wonderfully self important thing for football we caught the law of the game but the handball rule and some of these offside debates. It does seem like maybe the rules were written at a time when there was no sense that we were going to have this sort of microscopic frame by frame ability to look this closely and unpack everything I feel like, do you see that we're, we might be redrafting some of these rules and laws in response to what the technology now is asking us in terms of precision and, you know, when we when we go in and we do these reviews. I really did appreciate that prompt my day and just the exploration of that, because me and my dorky way actually truly love the law. And it was something where we had a scenario it wasn't involved necessarily with technology but it was a triple punishment for to Mori red card penalty, because it wasn't a deliberate play on the ball kind of a thing. And people did not realize we still had triple punishment and the, and there was that discussion of well, maybe we wait for the person to take the penalty and if they score then the person is a yellow card and I'm like, wow, that's super fascinating. And going back to the technology component of how we add it on. I think that is one thing that it wasn't until. What was that it was 2014 2015 when David Ellery was in charge that we had a significant substantial change in the laws of the game that hadn't been there until the first time it was drafted and written so our law was working. But now it was for that demand of what about these scenarios these scenarios and you know we call it law and FIFA international football etc and funny enough an NCAA for soccer we call them rules. And the rules and NCAA college soccer are so specific and anyone who's ever drafted legislation who's had to read legislation and then read the annotations and the comments and the advisory opinions in advance of it to truly understand what the purpose of the law was in the first place to see if we're applying it wrong because there's obviously unintended consequences. When everyone draft something it's point of unintended consequences is that I thought in football and soccer we did a very good job of that and the more we get more details I sat on the NCAA rules committee, the more you now have to say well not every situation and scenarios exactly the same it may look the same there may be elements that are the same, but there's one or two things that make this one different than the other one and you know you only really do that deep dive when you're doing clip reviews when you're doing analysis when you're putting six different scenarios that are very similar with differences on a spectrum and saying okay, where do these fallen and why did we fall in and why are we sometimes I know what I'm explaining the laws right and I'm having explain people I have some really high, some good friends and top of FIFA and whatnot and and others and they'll send me a message well this is why the referee got it right I'm like you guys like I can't make that argument in the public court right like, which is the ball, they're gonna kill us because we're literally trying to split a hair and, you know, be very technical about it and, you know, even looking at the laws of the game for FIFA right now with the implementation of technology what they specifically try to do we're going to leave this in VAR protocol and keep that and that's our VAR protocol policy of how we're implementing technology, but let's try not to affect the laws of the game so much. So when we talk about handling issues right now it's you know they're gotten more factual and handling has always had a pendulum swing back and forth it's you know one day hopefully we'll have the porridge right but right now it's either too hot or it's too cold. You know that has always been there outside of technology. So the only difference now is VAR amplifies it and a little bit of a bigger light scheme and same thing with offside it's always either been, you know, I'm not sure if this is the popular thing you're either pregnant or you're not right. Same thing with offside you're either on or you're off there's no debate about that. So I think people are realizing now with it is that they want, they want, they want some wiggle room and some gray room in the black and white scenarios which the law doesn't allow for, and for good purposes and good reason, but it's it's everyone wants to debate about something which is all in business right. I haven't talked much about the the other football are American variety of football, which is which has some interesting, I think aspects related to what we're talking about. I mean for one thing it's probably the most. No sporting spectacle that has more cameras. You know it's it's made for TV clearly. And, and there's a lot of precision and yet there's still this traditional romance I love the, the chains that get trotted out to measure whether it's a first down, you know when really that there's technologies to do that measurement, but but the thing that fascinates me the most about American football and its incorporation of technology is the fact that we have now incorporated into the tactics of the game. Whether or not you want to call upon this technology with you know you and you know with each coach having a limited number of times, you know, to throw the red flag to go to that review and that's kind of an interesting idea that you don't want to review everything too closely because of the flow that concerns that Kristen mentioned maybe because you know the stakes aren't as high in every play, but certainly if it's last two minutes, they're high enough that then the officials will have will mandate those reviews, but then to kind of like bake that into the game itself where it's up to the coaches I don't know that just seems like this another interesting element of like making that part of the sort of adversarial process and the game. If anybody has a reaction to that. It seems quite interesting how in, you know, it definitely affects the flow and some teams are great with fast pace and some aren't and recovery and, you know, you see these big swings and stops and things like this so I think that there's that balance and sometimes we're not in balance with with using technology and on the on the reference side. However, you know you look at calls like a receiver catching the ball and then making a football move. So, you know, how do you, when you're looking frame by frame how do you really, and it's not live, you know understanding how much of a football move is just there's still within tech there's still a lot of subjective interference in there so you know it's it's just interesting to see how the flow of the game does change. In fact, there is so much subjective also interjected into the tech because like how do you quantify a football move per se how many steps is that how many frames is that and it's not truly defined. Yeah, I think, you know, try me in real quick. Yeah flow of the game is super interesting, especially in terms of tennis when there is no clock. Before Hawkeye live you actually got a certain amount of challenges per set you had three challenges per set and that was on your own initiative so one of the earlier times is during my junior career, and I'm looking up to my father like it's just the time do I challenge and I'm not really allowed to look to him but you only get three, you don't need and if you're correct, you still have three. So it only it's on your end to say hey, I really believe this was the time. Now we're at the point where Hawkeye live is like hey I'm going to tell you if it's around your deal with it. But yeah the flow is super interesting, especially in terms of the tennis where we already struggled with it. I think to see how it flows into the soccer world or European football, you know flopping happens to be a large part of the game we don't know where technology is going to go in that direction. And I do see in terms of accessibility for fans for players for everybody involved, you know, does it take away an aspect of the sport, you know, is that going to add to, you know, how we see soccer flowing in the future going to bring more Americans because the excitement is there, or is, you know, going on the ground for about a minute and a half like you got shot is that part of the spectacle of soccer, you know I'm curious to see how that goes. I think I think tennis needs more flopping. Let me know. But anyways, the boss is back I see Mia. This felt like I knew this was going to fly by but this felt like three minutes. This has been so much fun but Mia I know you want to, maybe we have a couple of quick questions from the audience because we're up against the hours. Yeah, yeah we have a bunch of audience questions so I'm going to try and get to as many as possible and so if you all could try and keep your answers concise that would be great. I'll start with this one from William Jordan. And I think Dave maybe I can direct this one to you. So he says, Are there applications of any of our technology outside of the sports world that have occurred or that seem foreseeable. I think you already mentioned a couple examples but maybe you could expand a little bit on that. I think, as I mentioned the realm of law enforcement for video is really quite profound and astonishing analogy because, again, it suggests that that it's, you know, the technology doesn't solve our value problems for us. It doesn't tell us what's valuable in the game it doesn't tell us immediately whether somebody is innocent or guilty it gives us the opportunity to record something that happened and then reinterpret it. And we see that again and again with the different ways that the different courts have treated body cams, and then we see responses to that where for example in the state of Arizona the legislature then passed a law after the George Floyd murder that said that people were not allowed to videotape police within eight feet of the police and that was recently decided to be unconstitutional, but it means and I think sort of like as Andre said, you know, in American football how it was incorporated into the strategy this becomes another thing to play in with and around. Yeah, thanks Dave. And I have another one here for you, Noah. And you started to touch on this but the question is, does it feel different to play under a tech versus a human referee and particularly does tech refereeing increase the pressure that you feel as an athlete and I think, you know, this is interesting I know a lot of your, your work focuses on athlete mental health now so so maybe you could touch on that aspect. I know it is super unique I think, you know I'm a non traditionalist in the world of tennis I'm looking to evolve in as many ways as possible, but it does I mean the traditional sense of having people behind you even though they're usually in my way and I'm running into them I don't feel bad for that but you know having that tech, it does take away that that tennis field to it is what we're known and and how we've kind of grown up with that and you know you know you never see so many eyes glued to a screen that when a player challenges a call. Like Roger Federer challenged his 2017 Australian Open Championship it was the against Raphael Nadal it was the match point and you have you know we're talking about 10 million people glued to a screen to see a ball that was two millimeters wide and I think there's something behind that and in terms of the players. Yeah I actually think they're the technology goes the other way and it does help you know you don't have to rely on the human aspect of it and there's nothing like walking off a court and knowing that you deserve something rightfully, and it was just human I completely missed something and and for that that stuff that sticks, I can you know overcome the fact that I lost it was on my terms it was my fault I missed a ball totally get that, but it was somebody else that missed a call, just due to the fact that their eye glanced the wrong way a bug flew by them a strong breeze came in the wrong direction whatever the case may be. It's a lot of pressure to put on either person and I think it's up the game drastically. Kristen, here's a question for you and it goes back to the point you raise about athletes adapting to systems. And that kind of dynamic raises another question which is, who's developing these systems and are they being developed fairly and so the question is, do you think there's being enough done to include different athletes in the development process of some of these these technologies. I do I think I'm a solution based person compared to like tech being pushed down into sport. I've, I've for the last 20 years and 13 Olympic games have really focused on finding solutions for our teams and there's just becoming a bit of a marriage between those so I do feel like we are going in the right direction because the questions that were asking as coaches and athletes. How can I get faster how can I worse the acceleration deceleration happening, like all of these things timing systems, you know, AI VR all of this. It's helping the athletes just become more efficient and really, you know, helping in recovery injury prevention all of this, and it just so happens it's coming from the other side as well. And so what I'm finding when I work with the big tech companies and AI companies that we're finding a really nice marriage in between of how can we use what they're building for our benefit. And then they ask us how can we use some of the AI analysis tools that you use, how can we use it to help better the game make it more fair but also make it more efficient so I do feel like we're heading in the right direction and I do think that a lot of it is coming from the athlete performance side of things. Great. And we have about two minutes left here so Christine I'll give you the last question here. And this is another question. It says would making the communications between the VR booth and on field referees or the calculations made by automated systems public improved transparency. I know you have two minutes it's funny because usually TV sometimes gives me two seconds to answer this question. The answer is yes, it would be and the reason there was a bit of hesitation out of the gate and understandably so is you are implementing technology for the first time ever with officials of over 20 years of experience officiating in one way so there was a learning curve for the foul right sometimes we knew the foul was there because internally we knew it right from some of the considerations but we were not yet used to saying, based on X, Y and Z this is why it is verbally and then working with our teammates. Now that we've had and it's still in its infancy right so 2017 was when MLS used it 2018 is when the other league started using it FIFA so it's still within less than seven years of its use. Now that we have kind of gone and we see it more consistently throughout tournaments. Now is the question of allowing more communication and rugby does a very good job of this the Australian football I believe as well does where they release more that communication and it allows the viewers to understand better what is that we're communicating so that will be happening. FIFA right now still doesn't want it but the reality is that will happen within the next five years. Great. Well thanks so much, Christina. That was a very quick answer to a tricky question and thank you all. All of our panelists for for joining us today and for sharing your expertise. Unfortunately this is all the time we have but please continue to join future tense for additional events you can find more information about our events at www.future-tense and future tense as a reminder is a partnership between Arizona State University, New America and slate. So until next time thank you all so much and take care.