The National Basketball Association has turned to AI for providing personalized game highlights and other features during live game streaming.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver and San Antonio Spurs No. 1 overall draft pick Victor Wembanyama unveiled the new feature "NB-AI" during last week's NBA All-Star Tech Summit.
This includes a "movie mode" to see the live NBA game stats match certain film aesthetics and art styles with just a voice command.
It is worth noting that this was not the first time the NBA has turned to AI for some of its new projects.
The league has previously been reported for integrating generative AI into its app last year for both marketing and streamlining its contents.
The NBA reasoned that the shift towards AI was brought by the increasing number of users on its app and "we simply don't have the human manpower" to meet the rising demand.
Spider-Verse Writer Slams NBA Over AI Project
NBA's latest decision regarding AI technology was not met with applause from many of its audience, including the "Spider-Verse" writer Chris Miller.
Miller accused Silver and the NBA of "scraping" the art style from the "Spider-Verse" films without his permission.
The writer, who also worked with AI during the "Spider-Verse" films, dismissed the NBA's latest project as "this janky-ass AI looks nothing like the hand-crafted innovative artistry of the films."
AI Use Becomes More Prevalent in Entertainment Media
The NB-AI was only one of the recent signs of the growing presence of AI in sports and entertainment media.
Aside from the NBA, the NHL has jumped in the trend of leveraging the technology for its content analysis efforts.
And just recently, the NFL also introduced an AI-powered "digital athlete" to simulate players' experience and help assess what "individual players need to stay healthy, recover quickly, and perform at their best."
This is in addition to the AI integration to the NFL app to provide real-time graphics and analytics during live game streaming.
In some ways, the latest trend of sports stars marketing new technologies is reminiscent of when the sports industry started getting into NFTs.
