A Note on the Philippines' First-Ever AI Sportscasters

After news spread that GMA Network was debuting the first-ever AI-generated sportscasters, my mind immediately went to something Malcolm Gladwell said about AI when he was here in Manila a few weeks ago. The author, public speaker, and thinker was asked about his thoughts about the rise of AI in a variety of fields and industries, and he gave his usual thoughtful reply. 

“AI is something that I think, in its best form, will allow human beings to do what we’re best at,” he said.

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Gladwell paid particular focus on two of the most traditional professions AI could have an enormous impact on—doctors and lawyers, both of which, he says, fulfill two fundamental roles: a data role and a human role.

“What AI will do is lessen the data role in the best-case scenario and allow them to function in a more human role,” Gladwell said. “Fundamentally, what is the job of a lawyer? It is to resolve disputes between humans. To do that well is something no machine can ever do. It’s about sitting down with human beings and bringing about a successful resolution of a human conflict, helping to understand each other, and deal with their own anger and distress. In my idealized world, that’s what lawyers become. The mundane aspects of drafting contracts can something that can be left to AI.”

In the case of doctors, the author of bestselling books like The Tipping Point and Outliers pointed out a similar scenario, arguing that, because of their medical responsibilities, they often have no time to sit down and interact with their patients.

“They have no time to allay their fears and talk them through their anxieties and learn what really is troubling them,” Gladwell said. “They have a million things on their plate. The hurrying, hurrying, hurrying, the technical aspects of their job have become overwhelming.

“If we give them an AI tool that says, ‘I’ll do the diagnosis, you can just sit down with the patient and make sure that person goes home happier than they were when they first showed up,’ that is such an enormous plus for mankind,” he added. “It does mean that a different kind of skill is going to be required of these professions. But we’ve made that transition before, and I think we can make that transition again.”

Too bad Gladwell wasn’t asked about AI-generated sportscasters, but one can infer and extrapolate what he would have said.

To be fair, the non-human delivery of news and information to an audience is pretty old news at this point. China introduced what was purportedly the first-ever AI-generated TV news anchor in 2018—yes a full five years ago.

“He’ learns from live broadcasting videos by himself and can read texts as naturally as a professional news anchor,” China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said in a statement.

“The development of the media industry calls for continuous innovation and deep integration with the international advanced technologies,” the AI anchor himself (itself?) said in his first broadcast.

Since then, many other broadcasters from several countries have followed suit and there are now AI news readers from giant and reputable broadcasting agencies in several countries, including India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Malaysia, and others.

All this isn’t to say that the criticisms against the Philippines’ first AI news reader from GMA Network aren’t valid. The tone of most of the comments seem to be evenly divided between worrying and snarky, with only a smattering that are somewhat positive and encouraging. The most common ones point to the obvious—that AI is slowly phasing out humans, just as most people predicted, and how dare GMA floor the accelerator on the transition. Some even called it a slap in the face of traditional broadcasters who have made it their lifelong career to deliver up-to-the-minute updates and commentary on the latest ballgames. The kneejerk reaction of most people is expected.

But what is technology if not groundbreaking and disruptive? AI has been upending our lives for decades, although few of us have ever really noticed, until it seeps into something as pervasive and mainstream as local broadcasting. Advances in AI technology are going to happen no matter which side of the debate we’re on, and just like squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube, there is no turning back.

And just to play devil’s advocate here for a second, we get how a broadcaster like GMA would invest resources to play in this field. Having a presenter that mimics how a human would read sports updates without the risk of stuttering or on-air gaffes, not to mention the tantalizing fact that the company doesn’t have to pay them a regular salary, allowances, benefits, and all the other expenses attached to having a flesh-and-blood employee? I wouldn’t be surprised if GMA has been planning this for years and that they’re planning to expand the AI news reader role to something beyond sports.

But, of course, it’s not just about having a talking head reading a script to the audience. The nuances and idiosyncrasies of an actual human being sharing sports updates to an audience are things that AI will probably never get: the sheer joy and excitement when reporting on a particularly dramatic victory, or, the flipside, the sadness and grief at a devastating loss for the home team; the intricacies of analyzing a strategic play; or providing context or having to explain a specific development in team dynamics in real time—these are all far beyond the capabilities of current AI technology. It might happen eventually, sure, but probably not anytime soon.

Still, the introduction of non-human news (or sports) TV presenters here in the country has always been a matter of when, not if, and if GMA hadn’t done it first, you can bet some other enterprising broadcast agency or media platform would have. The thing to do now, I think, is follow Gladwell’s thinking and integrate the data or routinary aspect of the job with the human element, eventually enhancing the competencies of traditional broadcasters. In short, we need to find a way to complement AI’s functions with what humans do best.

As always, people will debate the ethical and moral complications a particularly eye-popping and innovative piece of scientific advancement brings, just like generations before us have done. One can even choose to just turn the TV off as a form of protest and show of solidarity with the people whose jobs are most in danger of being impacted. But that will likely do little to halt the endless march of technology towards an ever-unreachable future.