The Efficiency Trap: Why Perfect Sports Might Be Boring
February 18, 2026
In a powerful response to the role of AI in the Olympics, Sam Levine argues in "AI at the Olympics: Enhancement or Warning Sign?" that while AI makes sports fairer and safer, it creates a dangerous precedent for the workforce. Sam points out that in the business world, AI is used for "cost reduction" and "replacement," whereas in the Olympics, it's used to "amplify human potential." This got me thinking about my own theme: if we make sports perfectly efficient through AI, do we accidentally kill the drama that makes them worth watching?
Sam mentions that AI in soccer and gymnastics ensures that results are "more accurate and fair." On the surface, who wouldn't want that? But think about the most famous moments in sports history. Many of them come from human error—a missed call, a slip, or a "lucky" play that shouldn't have happened. If AI removes all the "noise" and "error," it turns the Olympics into a laboratory experiment. Sam worries that in the workforce, efficiency leads to displacement. In sports, I worry that efficiency leads to a lack of soul. If every offside is tracked 50 times per second, we lose the human tension of the "close call."
The Goal of "Zero-Risk"
Sam highlights that injury-prediction algorithms are now used to alert coaches before an athlete faces a serious risk. This is the "Safety Algorithm" I’ve written about before. But as Sam notes, there is a "structural shift" happening. We are moving toward a world where we value the result more than the process. In the workforce, this means replacing a writer with an LLM because it's faster. In sports, it means trusting the algorithm over the athlete’s own feeling of their body. When we prioritize efficiency over the human experience, we lose the "faith" that anything—even the statistically impossible—can happen.
A recent MIT Technology Review article suggests that while AI increases fairness, it can also lead to a "homogenization" of athletic styles, as everyone trains toward the same "mathematically perfect" form. This is exactly the "Phase Change" Jonas Rodrigues warned about. We are orchestrating athletes to be more like machines. But the reason we watch the Olympics isn't to see a machine run 100 meters in 9 seconds; it's to see a human struggle against their own limits, even when the data says they should fail.
The Human Value
I agree with Sam that we need to maintain "human relevance." Whether it's in a job or in a stadium, the value comes from the person, not the output. If an AI can predict the winner of every Olympic event with 99% accuracy because the training was so "efficient," would we still tune in? Probably not. We watch for the 1% chance of a miracle. We watch for the "random" element that Sam’s efficiency-driven AI is trying to eliminate. As the Olympic motto adds *Communiter* (Together), we must remember