The Limits of Understanding Another Athlete: Operationalized Self-Research with AI and Ethical Preconditions for Supporting Self-Understanding in Elite Sport

Abstract Scientific inquiry and professional support can produce valuable knowledge about an elite athlete without establishing complete understanding of that person. This epistemic limit becomes increasingly consequential as AI-assisted, person-specific performance systems emerge and artificial intelligence continues to evolve. Rather than treating current technological capabilities as the endpoint, this concluding conceptual paper examines the scientific and ethical principles that should guide future developments. Building on five preceding papers on Operationalized Self-Research with AI (OSR), it integrates the distinction between population-level findings and person-specific longitudinal research, between externally generated knowledge and the athlete's own understanding, and between scientific understanding and the capacity to decide and act under competitive pressure. Drawing on Karl Jaspers, the paper examines the limits of understanding another individual through scientific observations, professional interpretations, and AI-generated explanations. Drawing on Klaus Dörner’s ethical perspective in Irren ist menschlich, the author develops a normative orientation toward enabling athletes to progressively examine, develop, and revise their own understanding without treating external interpretations as unquestionable authority. Formal Claim Auditing, employing propositional and predicate logic, provides a methodological basis for examining scientific claims, premises, inferential transitions, and unsupported conclusions within human–AI dialogue. The paper distinguishes technological performance, methodological validity, and ethical justification while developing requirements for scientific integrity, individual autonomy, critical examination, and continuing human responsibility. These responsibilities concern professionals, developers, and institutions, while athletes progressively develop responsibility for their own judgments, decisions, and actions. Its contribution is a forward-looking epistemological and ethical framework for the continuing development of Operationalized Self-Research with AI in elite sport. As AI capabilities evolve, scientific methods and technical implementations must remain open to revision, while the fundamental ethical orientation toward individual self-understanding and human responsibility remains central.