The A.I. misstep

artificial (adjective): made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally, especially as a copy of something natural; insincere, affected, fake

“I’m old, not obsolete.” – Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Terminator Genisys”

Last weekend GMA, the country’s leading broadcast network, proudly unveiled their latest breakthrough: two artificial intelligence (A.I.) sports broadcasters who were making their debut on the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball broadcasts. “Maia” and “Marco” (with quotation marks, as is appropriate) are scheduled to appear on the network’s digital media platforms four times a month, not on mainstream television. GMA senior vice-president Oliver Amoroso said it “demonstrates our commitment to innovation in journalism.” Other executives chimed in with the party line, trying to spin it as an offshoot of an explosion of creativity, branding it as a creative means of delivering information. But delivery is a plain, straightforward matter. What does this accomplish that a simple human voice-over does not? You’re repainting the pipe when it’s the water that people need. Frankly, I don’t see what it improves.

Colleagues from the sports broadcasting industry, from fellow former NCAA anchorman Sev Sarmenta to former GMA sports journalists Chino Trinidad and Mark Zambrano, expressed their outrage, alarm and analysis in response to the announcement. Journalists from all over the industry warned that it was not a positive development. Quickly backtracking, Amoroso said that the two computer-generated characters (which is what they are) would “complement, not replace” the “human aspect” of their broadcasts. When did anchormen, analysts and courtside reporters (and by extension, news presenters) become merely the “human aspect” of live game coverage? That implies that the A.I. creations are on similar footing as the real people who are actually at the games. Since there has already been an investment in the technology there is obviously a plan to expand their role in both sports and news presentation.

A.I. cannot have the necessary attributes to be a sportscaster: passion, relatability, aspiration, awe, surprise, inspiration, humor, even bias. Everything that makes us human. Can it experience life with other humans, from which it can draw emotions? It is a copy, a collection of visual and aural cues to deceive people into accepting it alongside its original human predecessors. It’s just code, which is created and dictated upon by humans, a shiny new toy whose purpose the very people using it don’t fully grasp yet.

This is an unnecessary encroachment on the livelihood of many who have dedicated their lives as both sports broadcasters and journalists, which, incidentally, are two different things. Commentating games is a broadcaster’s domain; chronicling and reporting the results makes one a journalist. Why put a human face on it at all, when you already have the best real people on the job?

As a private entity, the network can do whatever they want as long as it’s legal. If they wish to continue having A.I. news presenters because other Asian countries are doing it, then that’s a challenge that the professionals in the Philippine news industry will have to deal with. The rationale is that newscasters are meant to be neutral and emotionless, disregarding the nuances that viewers identify to qualify the veracity of the news itself. But sports broadcasting is not the same. It cannot be devoid of emotion, memory, reaction, humanity. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.