People are looking for efficiencies in all sorts of areas of society — from business to education to life in general. But, Billy Robb, a Phoenix high school teacher and writer the "Cholla Express" on Substack, says the drive for efficiency, and the use of technology and data to do it, should maybe have some limits.
Robb recently wrote about how analytics and technology are impacting sports — and not always, in his opinion, for the better.
In his piece, Robb writes, “To value the human element is to appreciate that, unlike machines, we can find enjoyment and meaning in our inefficiencies.”
Robb joined The Show to talk about what he means by that.
Full conversation
BILLY ROBB: Yeah, I think, distinguishing between the, the perspective or the point of view of what I call technological efficiency versus the human element. And you know, the human experience is vast and, and it's not, not all aspects of the human experience can be measured and put into numbers. Just for example, reading a novel where you're sitting down, you're reading a story that someone else has written and you experience it, right? You're, you're pondering the story, you can look up from the book and make an insight or think about something about your life while you're doing that. And it's, that's an inefficient task, reading a book or reading a novel. So I think if we could say, well, what if we could just plug in a neuralink connection to your brain and have the computer download that book into your brain, it would just be different, right? You would, you would still have the elements of the story in your memory, but you wouldn't have the experience of it and that kind of that effective emotional insight aspect of human life is valuable, and it's meaningful.
MARK BRODIE: So where do you draw the line? Cause your piece was mostly about these inefficiencies and trying, you know, some people trying to adjust them in the world of sports, and you start with, for example, instant replay in baseball and basketball. Where do you draw the line between, for example, trying to get a call right, in some cases a very important call right, as opposed to interrupting the flow of the game?
ROBB: Yeah, I don't know if it's if I would think of it as drawing a line where this, this is the exact policy that should be done in a certain instance. The point of my piece is just to, just to sort of reflect on what's lost when we do implement technological tools like video replay, and the goal is to to correct those calls as you say, I think most fans would say, well, we have this technology, we should use it, but there's no way to perfect the calls. And even, many times watching an instant replay review, fans are still arguing about it afterwards. So it doesn't eliminate the subjective element of, of the refereeing. And I don't think fans today would, would say, we're much more satisfied with the way referees are calling the game now that we have instant replay. I think they're just as dissatisfied, it just takes longer time.
BRODIE: Well, so I'm curious what you make then of the idea of the automated strike zone in baseball, which a lot of fans have been clamoring for. And at the same time, a lot of fans are like, I'm not sure because for the very same reasons so it takes the human element out of it. But the proponents will say, look, this is an instantaneous thing. So I'm curious what you make of something like that, where it's in theory, making sure the calls are right, but not taking more time.
ROBB: I do think that would, that would be a little different because it's instantaneous and because it's, it would be the same for every single person. So that's one element in baseball that could be an easy fix, but, you know, in basketball it would be extremely difficult to have a robot call fouls or something cause it's such a quick and subjective thing.
BRODIE: Well, when you write about basketball and sort of the, the overarching theme, it seemed to me was analytics in terms of players and teams focusing more on three-point shots now as opposed to, you know, working the offense through and sort of finding the best available shot, whether it's a three or a two. We've seen this in other sports as well. I think maybe most notably baseball where you had shifts who were very popular to the point where the league had to ban them to some extent. I'm curious what you think about, you know, teams using like you talked about there's not so much a balance or a line to be drawn, but you know, teams are are obviously wanting to use data and analytics to find an advantage to win the game, which I think most fans would be in favor of, but at the same time, to your point, when it goes maybe too far, it takes something away from the game. When you have, you know, four infielders on one side of the infield, knowing that that's where the batter is gonna hit it, it kind of makes it less fun.
ROBB: Yeah, so that's as you say, what's the purpose of sports? Well, it's, it's a competitive thing, it's a cultural experience, and it's also entertainment, it's fun. So from the perspective of a coach, if you find this tool that can statistically improve your chances of getting more points on the board, you're gonna take it, but from the fan experience it doesn't necessarily make it more interesting and more fun.
BRODIE: Well, so I guess that kind of comes down to the question to some extent of which is more important, having an enjoyable experience for the fan or winning the game, or at least putting yourself in the best position as a team to win the game.
ROBB: I think if you're a team, your job is to try to win the games. Now I try, I pushed back a little bit on that because I think in sports there's so many factors that are involved. So for a basketball team, high volume three-point shooting is one factor. There's, there's a million other different factors and statistics that you can look at. So your job is to win the game. If the statisticians are telling you that high volume three-point shooting is how you get advantage, you're probably gonna do it, but it's, it's kind of like smartphones and social media. We're, we're not gonna go back, I don't think, because advanced statistics are out there and, and teams are gonna use it for an advantage. So it's just how do fans react to it and then how leagues try to respond to that, you know, once the consumer has been weighing in.
BRODIE: Right. What kinds of parallels do you see between what you've written about here in sports and maybe the world outside of sports?
ROBB: I think that the technological efficiency mindset is growing, is expanding, and, and it's being involved in pretty much all aspects of human life. I mean, my profession is I’m a teacher and I get frustrated with just test scores, you know, test scores is a measurement, it's a statistic, and we have different approaches and if that's a statistic, that's what we're going for. That's what we're trying to get at the end of the day. But there's to me there's so much more about education that that doesn't necessarily show up in a test score.
BRODIE: It's interesting, you know, over the course of history, sports has been kind of seen as in some cases a reflection of society, in some cases like a window into society. I wonder if in this instance you see sports sort of as one of those or maybe a metaphor for society at large in terms of the drive for getting rid of inefficiencies and making sure the calls are right and you know, using analytics to try to gain every possible advantage, perhaps at the expense of the overall sort of pure experience of the event.
ROBB: Yes, I definitely agree 100%, and it's just another example of the trade-offs involved. You know, we have, we have social media, it allows us to connect with more people, it allows us to keep in touch with people, but there's there's tradeoffs involved in losing time and attention and with almost every one of these digital technologies, there's trade-offs and I think, I think maybe we're getting you know the digital tools have only been around for about 20 years or so. I think it's possible we're getting to the point where people are are starting to reflect on a little more and say, well, maybe we've, maybe we've gone too far into this technological mindset, but there's still going to be more technology we're just now on the brink of the artificial intelligence revolution here, so it's unpredictable.
BRODIE: All right. That is Billy Robb, a high school teacher and author of the Cholla Express Substack. Billy, great to talk to you. Thank you.
ROBB: Thank you very much for having me.
