Dana White recently revealed what steps he would take to settle the Human vs. AI debate related to UFC athlete rankings. White mentioned that the UFC would consider both the available options to close this discussion once and for all.
Dana White Chose To Have Both AI and Human Rankings
The official UFC athlete rankings have been at the center of several controversies in the community. Despite being controlled by an internal team, even Dana White has made multiple comments that raise a question about their authenticity.
White kept counting Jon Jones as his top pound-for-pound fighter throughout the latter part of 2024, while the official UFC rankings had the reigning lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev, sitting in the no. 1 spot of the same list since June.
White finally accepted Makhachev as the top pound-for-pound UFC fighter after his victory against Renato Moicano at UFC 310 in January 2025.
Modern AI programs have developed capabilities to provide their own UFC rankings, adding a new chapter to the saga. Currently, there’s a massive debate in the community about human and AI rankings in the assessment of the fighters.
On Saturday, an X (formerly Twitter) post from @jedigoodman revealed White’s approach on the human vs. AI UFC rankings debate. The clip featured a section of his post-UFC Kansas City press conference in which he talked about including AI in the rankings process.
White may have been unsure about using AI in the UFC’s other fields, including matchmaking, graphics, but clearly mentioned that the UFC would maintain an official version of AI rankings in addition to its traditional human rankings.
The Las Vegas resident said, “Listen, I’m not delusional to think that the AI thing is gonna solve all the problems. That’s why we’ll have two sets of rankings. We’ll have AI and human [both].”
Dana White is asked about the two rankings system (AI and human) the UFC will have. pic.twitter.com/SQzYJOJXsj
— Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) April 27, 2025
The evolution of AI has emerged as a significant challenge for humans in several fields, especially employment. The former OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, has also gone on record to say, “People will lose jobs” in the near future due to the rapid advances in the capabilities of AI platforms.
Altman also opined that the evolution of AI would create several job opportunities. But White doesn’t seem interested in reducing the manpower of his organisation due to this wind of change. His decision to maintain both a human and an AI set of rankings in the future may have saved a few jobs.