Have you been following this whole A.I. caper? I’m a bit of a sucker for an existential fear, whether it’s the growing reach of China in the Pacific, global warming and the destruction of the planet, England/Bazball winning the Ashes in Australia - the latest concern is Artificial Intelligence.
I mean, as a bloke who gets to consume sport professionally and turn that experience into words, you have to think there’s already a bot somewhere out there that has surpassed my meagre capabilities.
In recent weeks, authors like Trent Dalton and musicians like Peter Garrett have been articulating the reality that Big Tech is already scraping the internet to teach its A.I. to make music, literature and art.
While that is thoroughly depressing, I was slightly buoyed by the thought that recreating the utter randomness of sport is surely a bridge too far.
An A.I. might learn to write like Dalton in Boy Swallows Universe, but can a ro(bot) ever surf like Molly Picklum and Jack Robinson at Teahupo’o?
Sure, the aqua water, vibrant green mountains and jagged reef might look as though it was created in a computer lab, but the blood spilling out of competitors and the shrieks of fear from spectators in the channel let you know this is genuine.
The stereotype of a pro-surfer is that they’re too cool to care, which is what made Robinson compelling to take in on the final day in Tahiti. In competition, he was utterly focused as he channelled the rolling slabs of ocean into athletic artistry. The effortless nature of his performance contrasted with the painful graft of his interviews through the day. Police interrogations have yielded more expansive answers than what the broadcasters could prise from the Margaret River man. It was like watching a dentist pluck teeth from a patient who’d declined anaesthetic.
What this said, which Jack evidently couldn’t/wouldn’t, is how much he cared. How locked in he was. Anything other than victory in this tournament and his year was wiped. Success would mean finals. The relief and gratitude was evident in celebration as his wife and baby (Zen, of course his name is Zen) jumped into the turquoise water in floatie vests. A kind of three-person flotilla of hugs and love.
Joining him in Fiji at the notorious Cloudbreak, is Molly Picklum. After winning in Rio, she told the ABC SPORT Daily Podcast that the more hectic the wave, the more she thrived.
“Everything goes quiet, it helps me focus” she told me. Unsurprising then that she strapped on a helmet and went into battle at Tahiti, taming the break and her chief rival Caitlin Simmers.
Where Robinson was projecting an unlikely concoction of locked-in, calm and stress, Picklum was pure exuberance. “Wow. Just like that. A couple of barrels and you win.” The Central Coast 22-year-old will head to the finals as the number one seed. It means she has to win one heat and she will be Australia’s next surfing world champ.
