[Rules] The FIA - what's occurring there?

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

There is a current global trend toward antipathy toward all authority, be it political, sporting, management or privilege.
This is easily observable on most of the social media platforms on any subject or news service in most places on the planet.

underrated and great point! social media is toxic and unfortunately this has had an effect of turning the fan base into an anti authority mob.

still not on the side of the FIA tho!

far too many tangible examples of how and where they have fallen short of upholding the sporting code imo. it all cant be dismissed as a sign of our times.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Plantagenet

Out of interest, does anyone know if MBS if based in Paris these days and in personal, regular contact with FIA colleagues, or is he in Saudia on MS Teams?
I only ask as in the post-covid world, it seems increasingly common that senior execs are based half the world a way, appointed rather optimistically/naively on the basis that remote folk can adequately lead complex organisations. Just wonder if this might explain the complete lack of tact in the FIA response this week?

serious answer, you do see him at races so i imagine there is face to face stuff going on.

less serious far more cynical answer, i think these fat cats like fancy hotels and free meals too much to stay away from the trappings of Paris life particularly when they are never more than a 1st class flight back home!

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I think this article gives a bit more insight to what's going on: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...e-agent-probe/

As said, not everything is what it seems to be.

Good to be reminded from that article of the list of friction points recently, seen in one place like that does seem to show a clear pattern.

The way MBS appears to be conducting himself is not only clumsy, arcane & classless but is also somewhat reminiscent of Balestre and some other stuffed-shirt, blazer-adorned "leaders" from the past - that approach didn't work then and won't work now. The way that commercially aligned sports run these days is very different and the "governing bodies" from the past aren't always where the real power lies, but "run" the sport and make good revenue from it for their other activities.

Max Mosley and Jean Todt understood that and MBS needs to have more acceptance of it as well, or so it seems.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

One has to remember that he comes from a society that brooks no dissent or argument, and where the leader has to be revered, certainly in public, and in private, one needs to be very certain about the person to whom you confide.

I had similar thoughts, but was trying to find a way to voice that tactfully and without it coming across as somehow racists or similar. There is no single management or leadership style that works in all situation. Cultural differences are real as well. And "cultural differences" covers a wide gamut. I am not limiting that to just something like nation, geography, religion, racial or a shared social experience, but also other collective experiences such as "military vs. business" in which the leadership experience is different.

Being an effective leader in one environment does not guarantee you can do the same in another. Even switching types of businesses (i.e. product to service based) can be a rough road for experienced leaders. Being an effective leader means having a bag full of tools that you can use. But if you have been a plumber all your life, you might be a fish out of water if your next job is electrical work. You will find you can't rely on all of those old tools. You have to learn which old tools still work, which ones to stop trying to use and to develop some new tools as well.

Sometimes people can make the transition from one environment to another, some can't. MBS is clearly having a rough time of it. But if he is capable of learning from his mistakes he could get it right. Like I have said earlier, I actually support FIA taking a stronger role. I know people like to complain about the FIA (and they are not perfect), but I do think it is good to have something to balance against the predominantly commercial view that FOM has.

Originally Posted by Taxi645

I think this article gives a bit more insight to what's going on: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/a...e-agent-probe/

That is another good article. It is similar to the motorsport.com article I posted earlier, but focuses much more on the pure FIA vs. FOM aspect. As that article points out, the 2026 Concorde agreement will be interesting. It is my understanding that the Concorde agreement is NOT just between FOM and the teams, but also the FIA. It just (in recent history) has been more contentious between FOM and the teams. This next time it is likely to be a three way battle.

It is interesting that these recent public battles are less about substance on the surface than maybe appearing to be nothing more than taking opportunities to kick each other in the nuts in front of a crowd of onlookers.

Richard

[broadrun96]

So the answer appears to be nothing happening there??

Or at least the oh, it was only one report on the media, whoops statement as I read it

[GTRMagic]

Mr Woolf is reported in a few places to be exchanging legal documents with the FIA so the issue isn’t gone yet.

Compensation claim?

The other MBS (Mortgage Backed Securities) and their mismanagement arguably caused 2008’s cataclysmic GFC (Global Financial Crisis)

This MBS seems perhaps to be trying to out do the impact of that

[Tourer]

According to the last two paragraphs of this article, MBS had a fall and suffered concussion earlier this week, meaning no media conference for him at the FIA awards. Speedcafe is a competent news body so the info is most likely correct.

Makes me wonder if the 2nd part of the FIA / MBS "cunning plan" is to blame the release & investigation on him being concussed at the time that he read the "media" report that started this all? Might give him a way out for his lack of judgement.

Or it could simply be a way to avoid being asked obvious questions about the investigation and public release.

Will we ever really know (cue twilight zone music).

[Mike Harte]

The fact that he didn't attend the press conference prior to gala itself, is telling. More telling is that he actually presented the prizes at the gala and chose not to even mention anything about it, probably in the knowledge that Hamilton had, in effect, called for him to stand down from his position.

What struck me immediately when I started reading the articles is why on earth are holding the gala in Baku which meant all the attendees had to fly all the way there, nearly half the world away from Paris, the FIA' headquarters and where most of those attending actually live.

And talking about flying, I wouldn't have thought that flying that distance with such severe concussion was the best of ideas, so severe that you cannot attend a press conference.

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The fact that he didn't attend the press conference prior to gala itself, is telling. More telling is that he actually presented the prizes at the gala and chose not to even mention anything about it, probably in the knowledge that Hamilton had, in effect, called for him to stand down from his position.

What struck me immediately when I started reading the articles is why on earth are holding the gala in Baku which meant all the attendees had to fly all the way there, nearly half the world away from Paris, the FIA' headquarters and where most of those attending actually live.

And talking about flying, I wouldn't have thought that flying that distance with such severe concussion was the best of ideas, so severe that you cannot attend a press conference.

Isn’t Buku Oil rich ? Keep it in the family eh?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Tourer

According to the last two paragraphs of this article, MBS had a fall and suffered concussion earlier this week, meaning no media conference for him at the FIA awards. Speedcafe is a competent news body so the info is most likely correct.

Makes me wonder if the 2nd part of the FIA / MBS "cunning plan" is to blame the release & investigation on him being concussed at the time that he read the "media" report that started this all? Might give him a way out for his lack of judgement.

Or it could simply be a way to avoid being asked obvious questions about the investigation and public release.

Will we ever really know (cue twilight zone music).

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The fact that he didn't attend the press conference prior to gala itself, is telling. More telling is that he actually presented the prizes at the gala and chose not to even mention anything about it, probably in the knowledge that Hamilton had, in effect, called for him to stand down from his position.

What struck me immediately when I started reading the articles is why on earth are holding the gala in Baku which meant all the attendees had to fly all the way there, nearly half the world away from Paris, the FIA' headquarters and where most of those attending actually live.

And talking about flying, I wouldn't have thought that flying that distance with such severe concussion was the best of ideas, so severe that you cannot attend a press conference.

He was too concussed to be involved in the mess that he was obviously involved in, too concussed to go to the press conference, but just fine enough to fly to Baku to present some awards - apart from the one for Lewis. Because that would've been awkward.

This man is a clown. It'd be less controversial to reanimate Max Mosley for a return for FIA President at this point.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

It'd be less controversial to reanimate Max Mosley for a return for FIA President at this point.

Max 'Headroom' Mosley...the president we deserve!

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

Max 'Headroom' Mosley...the president we deserve!

I like it. Blast from our cultural past! Given the state of AI and specifically Generative AI, it may not be hard to do!

Richard

[Tourer]

More in Autosport today about source of FIA /FOM conflict (in a subscriber-only article so have inserted it here in quote box):

It does not take a rocket scientist to work out that relations between the FIA and Formula 1’s commercial rights holder are not great at the moment.

The style of leadership that we have seen from FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has helped put the governing body on a collision course several times with FOM since he took over at the end of 2021. There was the Abu Dhabi 2021 fallout, controversy over his remarks about a potential Saudi Arabian takeover of F1, angst over his plans to expand the F1 grid with Andretti, and questions asked about many aspects of the way grand prix racing has been run (think track limits, jewellery ban, driver code of conduct and behaviour).

Frustrations and annoyance perhaps reached a peak last week over the FIA’s mishandling, and ultimate U-turn, regarding allegations that proved to be totally unfounded against Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and wife Susie who is the managing director of F1 Academy.

The tensions are all a far cry from the days of most recent FIA presidents Max Mosley and Jean Todt where, despite the occasional flash points, the organisations were pretty much aligned on a lot of aspects regarding the way F1 needed to develop. And those alliances were crucial at times, perhaps no more so than amid the middle of the COVID crisis, when the FIA and FOM had to pull out all the stops and work together to push through plans that ensured the survival of all of F1’s current 10 teams. A split at that point of time could have triggered a collapse.

The current state of relations between the FIA and FOM has inevitably prompted some intrigue about what is fuelling the divisions between the two organisations. Front and centre of it has been Ben Sulayem himself, who has not been afraid to come forward and declare his views many times about situations he thinks are unfair. The approach is the opposite of F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, who much prefers to sort things out quietly behind closed doors and avoid too much fanfare in anything that happens.

While there have been suspicions of personal agendas and egos at play in terms of Ben Sulayem locking horns with FOM at many points, the situation is actually being fuelled by something much bigger – and can be traced back more than two decades.

Last week at the FIA Prize Gala in Baku, the president of the FIA Senate, Carmelo Sanz de Barros, offered some fascinating insight into how he viewed the situation – as he suggested it has all snowballed from a decision made in 2001 by the FIA.

In particular, this was the FIA’s move under Mosley to sell F1’s commercial rights for $313.7m to then owner SLEC – Ecclestone’s-established family trust – for 100 years (extending an existing 15-year lease). It’s a deal that runs until 2110. While the original 100-year deal focused on the commercial exploitation of F1, it has morphed into something that is far bigger than just giving FOM the freedom to sell TV rights and other big earning opportunities.

Along the way, the FIA has also given up control of various aspects – including timing, the control of certain passes, and sponsorship opportunities from things under its total control like the safety car – that it now believes should be under its remit.

And that is before any thought is given to who pays for the increasingly complicated regulatory role that it must fulfil in F1. As the ongoing controversy over track limits has shown – with the need for advanced technology and now even AI-elements – ensuring rules are policed properly does not come cheap.

For de Barros, the current situation between the FIA and FOM all ultimately boils back to this 100-year deal – and a feeling that the governing body’s previous administration took its eye off the ball in letting too much go.

“What I think has happened is that probably in the last few years, before our time, maybe the FIA was not paying too much attention to its own responsibilities in the F1 competition,” he said. “Then, when you are trying to get back to responsibilities and trying to apply your regulation, it may generate some conflict.

“The way we see it in the presidential team, it is clear that the owner of F1 is the FIA. We are responsible. We are the owner of this championship, like we are with rallies, with FE, or karting. But in the case of F1, there was an agreement where for 100 years we delegate the pure commercial responsibility to a third party. In that case, and at the moment, this is FOM.

“Probably it is not only the reason why we have been having some of these conflicts, and I'm not blaming only FOM, because I think that we've been not doing our job in many areas, and we've not been paying too much attention to some aspects of our responsibilities. So, what is happening now is that we are trying to go back to whatever is the normal approach and the normal process.”

De Barros likens the situation to someone lending a friend a piece of clothing, and then asking for it back many years later: “If I've being using your shirt for four or five years, and now suddenly I come to you and you say, ‘give me back my shirt’, probably you will try to resist a little bit.”

The suggestions over this being about the FIA taking back what it thinks it should have as the owner of F1, fits in with many remarks that Ben Sulayem has made in recent months. Speaking about track limits earlier this year, he suggested it unfair that the FIA was expected to police things on a ‘shoestring’ considering the billions that F1 was generating.

“Our agreement has to be better,” he said. “You have to remember one thing: we own the championship. I represent the landlord, and we lease it. Our mission is different to Liberty but we are in the same boat.”

He added: “We should not be running this big responsibility with a shoestring. We are transparent. [We tell people] this is what it costs. People are bragging about how much each F1 team is worth, but the FIA should be free and have the resources to run it in the best way. Every time we are better, we make the teams better and we make the sport better.”

But while there are obvious tensions, which will inevitably mark out the battlelines in discussions over the next Concorde Agreement from 2026, de Barros does not sense the differences between the FIA and FOM as being irreconcilable. He thinks relations are improving at certain levels, even if there have been some difficulties along the way.

“There have been moments where some conflicts happen, or some misunderstandings, and the style [has been questioned], but I think that this is improving,” he said. “We have had, in these two years, all these tensions, but I think that it is much better in the sense that now we start understanding what this commercial ownership means, and this is what we are talking about.

“I'm convinced that we are getting there, and I hope that we are at the end of this process because, whether we like it or not, we are in bed together. We are a couple, we have to go to bed every night, so what we have to try from both sides, is to make sure that we sleep as good as possible.”

The lingering frustrations inside the FIA over the 100-year sale are clear, but what is done is done. It knows it will have to wait another 87 years to address things properly on regarding the wider deal.

But there are elements it thinks it should get back now. And to achieve it, Ben Sulayem has been on the attack and confrontational – which has perhaps not been the best way of trying to achieve the aims.

What will be fascinating to see though is whether that aggressive stance remains or, in light of recent events, the FIA realises that being more conciliatory is a better route to success. As de Barros said: “It [the decision] was done years ago, and we can do little on that. We can ensure though that, within the contract and with the new rules of the competition, we need to adapt. I think this is important.”

*mods, if not OK to post the article in quotes, I understand you may need to remove.

[Tourer]

In the meantime, M. Todt has done an interview and has had a couple of things to say:

Clearly not a fan of MBS & particularly some of the things MBS has said about Todt's presidency.

In hindsight, M. Todt thinks that Singapore 2008 should have been cancelled.

[Tourer]

The takeout for me from those articles is that (of course in F1) it appears to be all about money. The current regime at the FIA thinks that it should be making more from the sport - who knows, maybe there's some truth in that?

However, the "bull in a china shop" methodology being used to achieve that is likely to have the opposite effect - keep throwing rocks at people and they'll either put up stronger walls, or lob a few back (or both) but the rock-thrower will find it MUCH harder to get what they want.

If the FIA wants more revenue, that can be negotiated in good faith as part of the upcoming Concorde Agreement, no need for all this public stuff, which to me only hurts the image of the sport and does no-one any favours, not FIA in particular but also provides some hurt for the teams & FOM (plus any people caught up in it, such as Susie Woolf) as all this stuff just devalues F1, at least somewhat, out there in the real world.

In short, it feels like the FIA is in severe need of an adult or two in the upper echelon of the organisation.

[chillibowl]

a little bit from the above quoted text:

'...he suggested it unfair that the FIA was expected to police things on a ‘shoestring’ considering the billions that F1 was generating....

He added: “We should not be running this big responsibility with a shoestring"...'

an interesting assertion there.

and one the begs the question about how much of the FIA's responsibility to govern the sport has been compromised by lack of budget?

was 2021 a failure stemming from an underfunded support system for the race director? are track limits going unenforced due to lack of budget to adequately monitor?

these are important questions because if that is being impacted then what does that mean about their ability to actually monitor the cars? rather, when they say they just look at a sample of a few cars is that really a time concern issue or a funding one?

[Mike Harte]

I do think that some within the FIA are overlooking the fact that it was never the intention for them to sell the commercial rights to Mr E; that was forced on them by the commissioners of the EU who had threatened that they would enforce it if they didn't do it themselves. Now, we can argue about whether Mr E got a sweetheart deal or not, but the FIA did get $300 million odd from the sale; so where did that money go if they now claim that they are running the show on a shoestring.

And, as with the days of Balestre, F1 teams plus now with FOM, they don't take kindly with diktats from the president of what has become the FIA. It may well be the way that BS conducts himself in his country, but FOM and the teams don't live there., and he needs them more than they need him and the FIA. And he needs to remember that.

One has to wonder how much the circuits are expected to pay for things to monitor track limits, for example? Or are the FIA considering setting up their own equipment and moving it around each circuit they visit. That would be a cost, but fairly minimal in the scheme of things. Maybe they could tighten their financial belt a bit, and run everything from their rather expensive building in the centre of Paris. And is AI software that expensive; I would have thought it would be considerably cheaper that employing humans to do the job?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I do think that some within the FIA are overlooking the fact that it was never the intention for them to sell the commercial rights to Mr E; that was forced on them by the commissioners of the EU who had threatened that they would enforce it if they didn't do it themselves. Now, we can argue about whether Mr E got a sweetheart deal or not, but the FIA did get $300 million odd from the sale; so where did that money go if they now claim that they are running the show on a shoestring.

Agree with this - has been my experience that in any walk of life, as people leave organisations and new ones come in, the original details get lost, reasons for making changes back in the day are lost and a desire for change comes out. Clearly they need to find someone to remind them!

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I do think that some within the FIA are overlooking the fact that it was never the intention for them to sell the commercial rights to Mr E; that was forced on them by the commissioners of the EU who had threatened that they would enforce it if they didn't do it themselves. Now, we can argue about whether Mr E got a sweetheart deal or not, but the FIA did get $300 million odd from the sale; so where did that money go if they now claim that they are running the show on a shoestring.

And, as with the days of Balestre, F1 teams plus now with FOM, they don't take kindly with diktats from the president of what has become the FIA. It may well be the way that BS conducts himself in his country, but FOM and the teams don't live there., and he needs them more than they need him and the FIA. And he needs to remember that.

One has to wonder how much the circuits are expected to pay for things to monitor track limits, for example? Or are the FIA considering setting up their own equipment and moving it around each circuit they visit. That would be a cost, but fairly minimal in the scheme of things. Maybe they could tighten their financial belt a bit, and run everything from their rather expensive building in the centre of Paris. And is AI software that expensive; I would have thought it would be considerably cheaper that employing humans to do the job?

Agree that the current situation is the result of MM and BE being as thick as thieves and that the deal was far too cheap even at the values that were clear in the year the deal was done.

Todt got his presidency but was largely invisible relating to F1, concentrating on mobility and the auto industry, public relations etc. The sporting side was allowed to morph the way Bernie wanted it.

So, hearing Todt reflect on what should have happened in Singapore is just typical of his approach to his responsibility to all the member of the FIA and its associated national bodies.
He took this approach to Abu Dhabi 2021, leaving the incoming MBS to try to work it out, even though the incident occurred under Todt's watch.

Yes, the championship belongs to the regulator, not the commercial rights holder. But the regulator does not have the resources to regulate in the way that it should be cause previous incumbents gave too much freedom to the commercial rights holder at a cost that benefitted the rights holder, not the regulator.

All the rhetoric that is fired at MBS is largely just people upset at him rocking the boat.
Whether its Liberty, drivers, teams, managers, or fans, no one wants the gravy train to end or to diminish, even if the MM/BE deal was manifestly an abuse of the rights of the regulator.

Greed is like a balloon. The more air it captures the bigger it gets until its overcapacity stretches its skin so far it explodes, and effectively implodes, becomes nothing, and falls into the pit the greedy have been digging for themselves.

AI is not the answer for everything.
Many believe it is their servant, but AI will be like a mechanical dog, wagging its tail for you.
When you least expect it, it will be the A1 tail wagging the dog, and the 'owners' won't know what to do.

How long this present situation will continue is hard to predict but F1 is not as healthy as many believe.
I doubt if the present balloon will be here in a decade.
Maybe, but not much longer than that.
Then there will be a reset.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

One has to wonder how much the circuits are expected to pay for things to monitor track limits, for example? Or are the FIA considering setting up their own equipment and moving it around each circuit they visit. That would be a cost, but fairly minimal in the scheme of things. Maybe they could tighten their financial belt a bit, and run everything from their rather expensive building in the centre of Paris. And is AI software that expensive; I would have thought it would be considerably cheaper that employing humans to do the job?

I would tend to think that the camera infrastructure to actually "see" all of the corners accurately and from the correct angle will be the expensive part. While never underestimate a contractor to bloat the cost, I think that the use of AI "alerting" of potential infractions will be much cheaper and accurate than a number of humans staring at screens lap after lap. My point is... if they want to monitor corners, AI is not going to be the part that drives up the cost. At least IMHO. But.. who pays for all of this is your point and who knows who. I can imagine as part of future requirements for hosting F1 races that monitoring equipment (cameras) may be asked to be provided by the circuit, but the FIA will provide the monitoring solution that uses the cameras.

Originally Posted by Teretonga

AI is not the answer for everything.
Many believe it is their servant, but AI will be like a mechanical dog, wagging its tail for you.
When you least expect it, it will be the A1 tail wagging the dog, and the 'owners' won't know what to do.

I can't disagree on this at a super high level. We might be approaching an inflection point that people just didn't really see coming a few decades ago outside of science fictions (Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL). So AI may rapidly improve over the next decade or so. But AI is an over used term. At one level (near the bottom) you have things like basic pattern recognition and at the other (not yet achieved) will be artificial general intelligence, or human level AI, or whatever you want to call it. Even if/when that is achieved their will remain "dumb" or "simple" AI doing things like counting widgets on a conveyor belt.

Richard

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Richard C

I would tend to think that the camera infrastructure to actually "see" all of the corners accurately and from the correct angle will be the expensive part. While never underestimate a contractor to bloat the cost, I think that the use of AI "alerting" of potential infractions will be much cheaper and accurate than a number of humans staring at screens lap after lap. My point is... if they want to monitor corners, AI is not going to be the part that drives up the cost. At least IMHO. But.. who pays for all of this is your point and who knows who. I can imagine as part of future requirements for hosting F1 races that monitoring equipment (cameras) may be asked to be provided by the circuit, but the FIA will provide the monitoring solution that uses the cameras.


I can't disagree on this at a super high level. We might be approaching an inflection point that people just didn't really see coming a few decades ago outside of science fictions (Open the pod bay doors, please, HAL). So AI may rapidly improve over the next decade or so. But AI is an over used term. At one level (near the bottom) you have things like basic pattern recognition and at the other (not yet achieved) will be artificial general intelligence, or human level AI, or whatever you want to call it. Even if/when that is achieved their will remain "dumb" or "simple" AI doing things like counting widgets on a conveyor belt.

Richard

Since Chat GPT was launched in Nov 1922 there have been four upgrade versions, and you can now ask it to give you answers to relatively complex legal and medical questions and it can give you high level doctorate level answers....

So, at what point does it take the place of consulting doctors, accountants or lawyers?
At what point does it take the place of professional people and court judges?
Yes. We can use it to judge track limit violations, and probably determine fault in racing incidents, but are we ready to let AI tell us when we are wrong and overrule professional judgement?

At what point will we be willing to let AI preside in a courtroom (or steward's room?) and decide who is right and who has violated the rule or law, and what the consequence should be.

There are already people in groups of society who want to go there,
We could have a very different world in 24-36 months

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

Since Chat GPT was launched in Nov 1922 there have been four upgrade versions, and you can now ask it to give you answers to relatively complex legal and medical questions and it can give you high level doctorate level answers....

They can do amazing things and can be great tools as long as their limitations are understood and accounted for. And that 1922 version was VERY early beta! (I know you meant 2022)

Originally Posted by Teretonga

So, at what point does it take the place of consulting doctors, accountants or lawyers?

The answer to shock people will be to say this happened a long time ago (depending upon exactly how you define things such as "what constitutes AI".) I wish I could find a link to support this, but when I was doing some Data Science training in 2013 it was discussed how basic statistical analysis methods were creating decision tree solutions that were provided better outcomes than those defined by doctors looking at the same core information. If I remember correctly it was around when to perform heart surgery vs. using stents, but I might be remembering the details wrong. But the data analysis techniques that supported that, while not AI, were the foundation stones for what we call Machine Learning and AI today.

So today, it is even better. Such as performing radiological analysis of things like mammograms to spot breast cancer. If it can be shown that these systems find things that humans miss, should we ignore those positive and lifesaving results? Again, not saying the given them decision making permission, but alerting.

Originally Posted by Teretonga

At what point does it take the place of professional people and court judges?
Yes. We can use it to judge track limit violations, and probably determine fault in racing incidents, but are we ready to let AI tell us when we are wrong and overrule professional judgement?

For the topic of spotting F1 track violations, who is saying that race control is going to be handing over control the AI? These would be tools. And likely tools that would be provably objectively better than humans. However, both humans and the tools make mistakes. I imagine the AI would be setup to alert stewards as to potential track violations. Then humans would review for final decision. The overall accuracy should go up and workload for the stewards should go down.

It can also go badly wrong using today's technology. Social media platforms (such as Facebook) heavily rely upon AI based moderation to enforce platform rules and what is or isn't acceptable behavior. Anyone who has spent any time in any of these platforms knows that these tools can get it right and also get it badly wrong. And what is sadly a problem is that given the scale of the problem (too much content and not enough humans to provide oversight), sometimes those AI decisions are final.

Also, people will use things like Chat GPT and then discover that in fact... it was wrong. The YouTube video below provides one of my favorite example of an attorney who used Chat GPT to do their legal research and it really screwed them up badly. It really is a good video and I can't recommend it enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM

But there is the larger question of impact on society as these solutions move beyond mostly novel to truly useful (which is happening now). If your job is to stare at a monitor watching one corner for an entire race, then yes, your job is going to be at risk (especially as humans are really, REALLY bad at repetitive tasks like that). My day job is in the IT industry. These solutions today can write good code and do other things that are going to impact that (and other) industries. I suspect that humans will likely end up more as managers for various processes in which they work with AI assistants. My daughter is also in the IT space and she has been using what I would call bleeding edge AI capabilities in her area to do what is effectively "grunt" work and automating it. For her it is not about putting herself or a peer out of a job, but rather increasing her productivity.

Originally Posted by Teretonga

At what point will we be willing to let AI preside in a courtroom (or steward's room?) and decide who is right and who has violated the rule or law, and what the consequence should be.

Tough questions for a deep topic. It deserves it's own off topic thread. One quick comment. It's probably happening today. Imagine systems deciding that you can't get a bank loan, an insurance policy or maybe exclusion from a potential job due to analysis performed by an AI. See my comment above regarding Facebook and not enough humans to monitor all of the decisions. This likely exists today in many places in the business world, but it is opaque to consumers like us.

Originally Posted by Teretonga

There are already people in groups of society who want to go there,
We could have a very different world in 24-36 months

My crystal ball is very cloudy as to the timeline (thinking more about general purpose AI). Is it 12, 24, 36 months or longer. I don't know. But your point stands. I expect it will be in my lifetime and absolutely within the lifetime of my young adult aged children.

Richard

[Teretonga]

Thank you Richard
There are some really good points in there to further my own research and information.

[Mike Harte]

Just to add a little to Richard's post above, the use of computer learning within the health service here in the UK resulted in significantly better readings for, especially, interpreting mammograms.

Secondly, I am fairly certain that the original reports about the use of AI did state that they would only be used to alert the team monitoring track limit infringements if their was a potential abuse; AI wouldn't be making decisions, human eyes would review the incidents before any action.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Tourer

More in Autosport today about source of FIA /FOM conflict (in a subscriber-only article so have inserted it here in quote box):



*mods, if not OK to post the article in quotes, I understand you may need to remove.

I sold a house in 2002. Maybe I should go back now and claim I should have sold it for more?

Truth is you really wouldn't want the FIA in charge of anything at all if you had a free choice...