BOSTON (AP) — The sports analytics crowd may be outnumbered when it comes to artificial intelligence.
The people who nullified sacrifice bunts and turned NBA games into 3-point shooting contests don't quite understand what will happen when AI fully invades sports, whether in the front office or on the field.
“I've been in computer science for a long time. This is the first thing we don't understand,” Philadelphia 76ers general manager Daryl Morey said Friday at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Ta.
“It's mind-boggling,” Morley said. “We actually created something with zeros and ones. We created it every step of the way, but we don't know the outcome.”
Every year, the MIT conference brings together thousands of calculus-minded sports geeks to crack data models on hot topics such as: Diversity, gambling or Reversing the slowing pace of the baseball game. But this year's gathering had a clear focus on AI, with panels and research papers on the potential of generative artificial intelligence to transform sports.
One talk on baseball strategy, another on how to deliver Olympic content to more than 200 countries competing in 40 different sports, and a research paper on using AI to extract player tracking data from soccer broadcasts. provided.
Morley, one of the conference's founders, participated in a panel titled “Winning with AI: The Future of AI in Sports.” Discussions touched on scheduling, player safety, advertising, ticket sales and potential broadcast improvements that would turn the on-field action into Disney cartoons.
Kevin Lopez, ESPN's vice president of development and innovation, likened AI to an iPhone. The iPhone has transformed everyday life, giving everyone with some coding skills the opportunity to devise their own applications.
“When I think about generative AI, I think about that,” Lopez said. “I don't think anyone knows what it is yet. That's very interesting to me, what happens next.
“In my humble opinion, we are at this moment in history where we are seeing new incremental innovations in AI every day,” he said. “What will a new student at MIT be like in two years?''
But don't get me wrong. AI already exists.
Carlos Peña, a baseball player turned broadcaster, said AI can be used to eliminate hitters' blind spots. (But he said players will resist unless that “stiffness” is removed and the instruction is changed to something as simple as “aim the fastball up and in.”)
Anticipating complaints from scouts and others that analysis cannot replace intuition, Pena said: What we are trying to do is increase our intuition. ”
Christopher Jackson, head of digital data and analytics for the Olympics, said AI could improve website content to satisfy fans of lesser-known sports in far-flung countries that typically don't get mainstream media attention. He said it could be useful for creating. One problem, he said, is that Olympic planning is measured in decades, whereas major changes in AI occur approximately every six months.
Julie Souza, global head of Amazon Web Services, said the NFL saves $2 million a year by running AI on schedule. That schedule has him at 1 quintillion (1 followed by his 15 zeros), with holidays, a shared stadium, and potential options that need to be considered for travel. AI is already analyzing which plays in football games, and even which body poses, are most likely to cause injury, she said.
“The rules are being changed to make the game safer and to protect the players more,” Souza said, adding that information could trickle down from the football world to the military and elsewhere.
“It's not just the NFL that's benefiting from this,” she says. “We're not going back. There's no way back from here. We're learning more and making the game safer. The only thing we can do is get our players on the field more. It's great not only for the league but for us as fans.”
Morey said the 76ers are using AI to improve productivity and speed up day-to-day operations, but AI is not yet sharp enough to outpace humans in trying to improve predictive modeling. I am. “We haven't found tons there yet, but things will change,” he said.
And they will keep trying.
“There's a lot of scary things about this, but in a way, this is happening,” Morley said. “There's no way to do all the safety stuff. … There's really no way to control it. To be honest, I just put myself in it to help my business, to help what I'm doing. Just embark on the journey.
“And you could run into something very scary. But what's the alternative? Why not accept it?” he said. “It doesn't make sense.”
___
AP Sports: https://apnews.com/Sports
