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AI Games

Chess Broadcast To Include Players' Heart Rate Determined By AI 49

Posted by BeauHD from the one-step-closer-to-ESPN-coverage dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ChessBase: The official broadcast of the final rounds of the FIDE Grand Prix Series, an important part of the World Chess Championship cycle, will feature players' heart rate indicator, according to World Chess, the Series organizer. This is the first time when the players' heart rate is measured and displayed in the broadcast of the World Chess Championship cycle event. It will allow spectators to better understand players' emotions and true feelings (as far as they are reflected in the heart rate) -- a rare insight into the psychology of the elite chess players who are trained and especially good at keeping a poker face. By adding a heart rate indicator, World Chess brings a new dimension into chess broadcasting and opens a new page of the way fans follow chess.

To accurately measure the heart rate without disturbing the players, World Chess is deploying a bespoke AI technology similar to that used by hospitals to track patients' vitals over video. It's the first time such technology is used in sports broadcasting. AI has been trained to read almost invisible changes in reflections of the skin color that change based on a person's heart rate. The official broadcast of the FIDE Grand Prix is available for free on worldchess.com worldchess.com and on World Chess Youtube and Twitch channels. [...] World Chess will continue developing and using the video heart rate reading technology in future events and broadcasting.
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Chess Broadcast To Include Players' Heart Rate Determined By AI More

Chess Broadcast To Include Players' Heart Rate Determined By AI

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  • Let's do it to congress-peeps during Judicial confirmations tho.

  • that shows when one of the opponents has an erection.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It's a gimmick but I can see the utility for people who are not as knowledgeable about the strategy situation. It can build drama if one player makes a move and the other player's heartrate starts to jump, it gives the audience a sense of scale to the moves being made, especially since the players do try to remain calm. I am guessing chess doesn't have crowd reactions like other sports.

      I would appreciate if they let and encourages the players to trash talk and do endzone style celebrations but that's just

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I'd totally watch chess matches if the players could do those types of celebrations every time they captured a piece. That would be awesome!

        Imagine, mixing WWE-style flamboyant personas with a chess match. Somebody needs to make this a reality, stat!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pascoea ( 968200 )
        I might watch if there was a chance to see some nerd strutting around, screaming like a madman, then spiking a king on the board. Maybe a good table-flip every once in a while.

      • It's certainly a gimmick, but it's not quite new. There was a top-rated Chess960 tournament in Norway in 2018 which used heart rate monitors. It was quite entertaining to see heart rates slowly increase with a worsening position, or suddenly spike with a bad move.

        I guess using AI for it might be new.

      • You might be interested in Chess Boxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • In case of being accurate enough...

      That's not going to happen. AI is not magical. The only thing you can use to determine heart rate is a heart rate monitor. This is just a dumb gimmick.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Yeah, you are dead wrong. I'm a doctor that has literally used cameras that are very accurate at determining heart rate.

        Beyond that, a "heart rate monitor" is kind of vague, and there are several devices using several technologies that can determine heart rate. A basic pulse oximeter shines a light through the skin to measure oxygenation and heart rate. An ECG measures the electrical activity of the heart to determine (among other things) heart rate. An arterial line measures arterial pressure and heart rat

        • Yes, there are many devices that will accurately measure heart rate, but a camera staring at your face is not one of them.
          Blood flow to the skin changes for several reasons, including food/alcohol that they consume, or the temperature in the room, or the amount of moisture on the skin. That's assuming that your camera is even good enough to detect such changes. On top of that many people who play chess are very good at concealing their emotions and reactions.

          • Dude, you're literally telling a physician who has used these devices that they don't exist.

            You have no idea what you're talking about.

            It's called photo-plethysmography. It's scientifically validated, devices exist, and there's robust research behind it.

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov].

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Kremmy ( 793693 )
              That page seems to confirm that you're not getting it done with just a regular video. It mentions those devices controlling the lighting conditions and using infrared wavelengths. Your heart rate monitor wand might not look that much different than a webcam but it almost certainly has a more complex sensor and light emitters.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It can be done by detecting motion. Computers are very good at that because it's used for video compression.

            Wait until the player is sitting still, which in chess is most of the time. Record the tiny involutionary motions on exposed skin. Filter anything below 40Hz and anything above 150Hz. Average it over many readings, and you have a reasonable indication of heart rate.

            Your phone can do a simpler version to measure breathing rate with an app, and some baby monitors use cameras to do the same.

    • I don't see the point of showing that information. Are chess fans really interested in this?

      It's interesting to see how much stress they are feeling.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • You might find some of the more recent rapid tournaments more to your liking. They are faster paced, so the commentators are more likely to focus on chess. Also, there are a lot more commentators for each tournament (chess24 usually has two groups of English speaking commentators, one for experts and one for beginners. Chess.com also has a team of commentators if you prefer to watch there. Twitch.com usually has a couple different commentators for major tournaments).

          So if you don't like the commentators, yo

  • I don't think it's a positive step to give the general public insight into this (any more than the weird "blood type" thing some countries do), and it could easily lead to changing the game by giving opponents a way to judge if something is a bluff or a trick. Chess is better off without this.

    • This is solved if the players are "air-gapped" (absolutely no networking whether in their pockets or inside their heads). So (a la Truman Show), the whole world knows, but the players don't. I'm assuming this is already the case. Or are chess players allowed to SMS their seconds for the best move?

      Players can know the vitals of their opponents after the game in way similar to how they (and other chess experts) can already subject a finished game to unlimited analysis. This just adds another dimension.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Improv ( 2467 )

        That's fair. So it's maybe not going to lead to cheating, but it's still really creepy and the game would IMO be better off without it. Chess players should just refuse to play in tournaments that do this.

        • True. If it becomes acceptable in one sport, then similar real-time monitor systems could be enabled in other sports. The technology already exists (e.g. fitness trackers). From there it could migrate to more dystopian uses like health insurers mandating users to take a break or visit a clinic if their heart rate, blood pressure, etc show signs of stress.

  • The early 2000s gameshow craze that had a show where they monitored the contestants' heart rates and had an on screen display of that heart rate.

    If the contestant's heart rate went up too high he or she loses the round. Seriously.

    I really wish I remembered the name of that show.

  • You don't need "AI" to do it, You need to detect intensity change of the skin. No need to put random data into some random weighted neural network. https://andykong.org/blog/PPG_... [andykong.org] Everything is AI now or is worthless.
  • I never could understand their initial proposal for an anal probe monitor for a chess match. Thank goodness it was rejected.

  • So player One almost touches his queen and the adversary Two gets an almost-heart-attack and player one takes a very hard look?

    PS. Sorry, old fart here, I'm not allowed to RTFA nor to RTFS.

  • Why? (Score:2)

    by Holi ( 250190 )
    Seriously, just why?

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