I have been fiddling around with AI recently and a thought came to me: Can AI write game reports? As a graduate of elementary school, I know that any good experiment starts with a hypothesis, so before we put AI to the test, here’s what I think will happen:
I think that AI is phenomenal at collecting, sorting, and formulating information into answers. Take ChatGPT as an example. It has passed the BAR exam, the Stanford Medical School final in clinical reasoning, and is able to carry on a full conversation with it’s user. This made it the second chatbot to pass the Turing exam, where the requirements to pass are whether the machine can fool a human into thinking it is also human. Scary stuff.
Now, where I think that AI lacks is emotion, especially humor. It’s clear to see when you read AI jokes or watch the never ending sitcom “Nothing, Forever”, which is a nonstop stream of a Seinfeld ripoff created with AI. Computers can’t seem to get jokes right, and for bloggers like myself or sites like Barstool Sports, humor is a constant in articles.
THE TEST
Since it’s one of the most talked about models, and since I was speaking about it earlier, I am going to put ChatGPT to the test. I am currently writing this after watching the whole of the Bruins vs Senators game, so I will use that game in the experiment.
RESULTS
I asked ChatGPT “write a game report for the Boston Bruins game today”, and this was the response I received:
“I’m sorry, but as an AI language model, I don’t have access to real-time information. However, I can provide you with a general template for writing a game report that you can use for any Boston Bruins game.”
Then, it gave me a Mad Libs-type fill in the blank article where I could fill in the date, teams, players, scores, and other meaningful information:
OTHER PROBLEMS
Another option I was given was to input a link that ChatGPT could use to gather information and write a game report. So, I tried url’s from ESPN, NHL.com, and 365 Scores, but none of them worked.
The closest url to working was ESPN, but it wasn’t quite right. In the report, ChatGPT got the date and the matchup right, but everything that followed was off. They had the wrong score, the wrong goal scorers, and it left out important notes from the game such as David Pasternak’s 40th goal of the season.
THE FUTURE OF AI AND SPORTS
I think that AI will be able to efficiently write game reports once they are able to collect information at a moments notice. The problem I think AI will face is building character. People continue to read blogs and game reports week after week because they find a style of writing they enjoy reading.
Another way to frame this character complication is visible in the sports radio industry. People tune into their local sports radio for the characters that bring them the news, not just the news itself. I don’t ever see AI replacing sports talk shows for this reason, and the same goes for sports writing.
While a literal defining voice isn’t available in writing like it is on radio, you are still able to hear the author’s character while reading a blog. As I said before, I think AI’s one short step is emotion, so I don’t think it will ever be able to replace humans in jobs where emotion is a key input of production. One of those jobs is sportswriting, so that’s why I am still hanging around.