Cracking the vault: Artificial intelligence judging comes to gymnastics

A light blinks on the black box alerting the gymnast to begin her routine. She launches off the vault, lands and turns to salute the robotic judge. Her score is already flashing on the big screen to the Olympics crowd and to millions of viewers at home, who have followed the live scoring as the move is dissected in real time. This is not a scene from Blade Runner 2049, but a possible vision of gymnastics future as it races to include artificial intelligence in its judging system. The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) is planning to introduce the AI technology to assist with scoring at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (as long as the IOC partner's for timekeeping and results approves, the plan is good to go).