Thoughts About Robot Umpires

 Picture this.

There are four people.

One is slightly out in, and toward the middle of a large diamond shaped field, facing inward toward one of the points of the diamond.

One is back at the very apex of that diamond's point, facing out toward the first person.

One is some distance toward the first person, but still in the diamond's apex, ahead of the second person and facing in the same direction as that second person.

One is positioned between person two and person three, quite close behind the third person, and he assumes a continually changing variety of squatting stances.

To avoid anonymity let's name those four:

Person One is the Pitcher.

Person Two is the Umpire.

Person Three is the Batter.

Person Four is the Catcher.

These four people are the nucleic driving force of a game called baseball.

The four of them initiate an unlimited number of transactions, each of which may or may not initiate subsequent transactions which may initiate subsequent transactions until each sequence terminates according to the rules of baseball.

When those rules declare the current transaction or transaction sequence is the last transaction, when that transaction is over, so is the then current game.

Redundant though it is to say, it needs to be said that the game only moves forward at the pace of each new transaction initiated by Catcher, Pitcher, Batter and Umpire.

Let's describe a transaction and note that each one is identical at the start.

The catcher is in charge of telling the pitcher - via secret hand signs - how to throw the ball each time he throws it.

The Pitcher throws the ball as well he is able to match the Catcher's directive.

If the Batter chooses not to swing at the ball, the Umpire declares the pitched ball to have been a "ball" or a "strike".

A strike is called if the ball, in the Umpire's expert opinion, passed through a three-dimensional rectangular chunk of air residing in front of the batter.

That Umpire called strike counts the same as if the batter had swung and missed the ball.

A ball is called if the ball, in the Umpire's expert opinion has missed that cubic rectangle of air.

If a mix of swings and misses or called strikes occurs before four balls have been called, the batter has to go sit down and wait for another chance; if he receives four ball calls before that, he gets to go to first base and hope to advance as subsequent transactions mature.

Anyone with any knowledge of baseball knows that I hurried things along here just to describe one of what I am calling a transaction, a full game, and each full game's story and final result is due to the unique blend of the nature and duration of each of those transactions.

And there are an amazing number of each of those transactions in each game.

The unique blend and nature of each of those transactions is due to the co-equal participation of four human beings, here named in transactional component sequence: the Catcher, the Pitcher, the Batter and the Umpire; the umpire has no function if the batter swings and misses; if the batter swings and connects, the Umpire must decide if he needs to call it "foul" - out of play - or remain mute if he deems it fair or in play.

The luck and the skill of each of those human components in each transaction have made baseball the game it is now and has been for maybe 180 years.

Replacing one of those four humans with a machine - because it can be done, and the machine is perfect, and the human is provably fallible (so are the other three fallible, but they don't have machine replacements yet) may make for infallible Umpire calls, but that will also make one of the essential  elements of each transaction of the game, and therefore the game - chance, or fate - no longer operative.

And the resulting game will not be baseball.

If that step toward certainty, accuracy and perfection is taken it would be better to replace the other three participants of those nucleic transactions with AI cribbed and scripted super players, all 18 of them to join the digital umpires on giant screens in giant stadiums with giant stereophonic speakers. Each game will be scripted perfection, the only arguments being with the script writers.

Since the script writers will be machines, arguments, like resistance, will be futile.