Conversation with Shohei? This tech firm is introducing AI versions of baseball’s biggest stars
How would you like to be friends with your favorite professional baseball player one-on-one? A California-based tech company is offering just that — by building an AI avatar of every Major League Baseball star.
AI firm Genies recently signed an intellectual property deal with MLB Players Inc. — the business arm of the Major League Baseball Players Association — to create cartoon-like “companion” versions of each player on the league’s roster.
Once the product officially launches, baseball fans will likely be able to interact with avatars on the Genies website, where they might ask a player to explain a game-time decision or chat about a home run that happened 10 seconds earlier.
“It’s not actually Shohei Ohtani,” said Akash Nigam, CEO and founder of Genies, in an interview with CBC News. “It’s his genie, and his genie knows everything about him. And it’s like his little assistant that you can get to know.”
This project reflects how fan-celebrity relationships are evolving with advances in artificial intelligence, especially as companies look for opportunities to capitalize on intellectual property through valuable licensing agreements.
front burner21:47Will AI agents take over the workplace?
Deal Between Genies and MLB Players. Inc. is a catch-all, meaning it includes every single player in MLB. Trading card deals and partnerships with sports-related video games are also structured as comprehensive agreements, according to one lawyer.
“It would be really inefficient to go to every athlete and negotiate to allow them to be included on trading cards,” said Dave Stern, partner and head of the sports and entertainment law group at Blaney McMurtry LLP in Toronto.
If a player is to be portrayed in a video game or as an avatar, some people may choose to be actively involved in shaping the rendering, Stern said, so they can be “meaningfully consulted” throughout the process and retain some control over their image.
That doesn’t mean every MLB player would be happy with such a deal.
“We do not know how (avatars) will interact, and some players may exercise certain rights and protest such a deal and their participation through MLB Players Inc.”
ups and downs of parasocial relationships
Instead of building the “brain” behind artificial intelligence – Genesys runs its technology on large language models. OpenAI, ElevenLabs and Google – According to the corporation, the company’s mission is to give AI a “face” and deepen the one-on-one relationship between celebrities and their fans.
He said, “Typically, the relationship between an artist or athlete and their fan base is either through their music, their sports, or social media. And the problem is that it’s a one-to-many relationship.”
For people with strong boundaries, having a one-sided relationship with a celebrity isn’t necessarily negative, said Lynn Zubernis, a clinical psychologist and professor at West Chester University in Philadelphia who researches the psychology of fans.
“If you’re a Taylor Swift fan and Taylor Swift is killing it out there, you feel really good too, even if you’re not one of the people there. It’s the same with football teams,” she explained.
The downside is that some fans find it difficult to be self-aware and manage expectations within those perceived relationships. Cartoon-like avatars reduce this risk somewhat, Zubernis said, but that doesn’t mean there are no avatars at all.
“It’s similar to a phenomenon that happens in the real world – if someone is a fan of a rock star and can’t reach the rock star – they often feel closer to the rock star by engaging with their accountant or their manager or their bass player.”
The avatars, at least for now, will exist only on the Genies website, where users will be able to chat with them. They will have text and voice functions, and the ability to remember details of past conversations – the more a user talks to a bot, the more the bot will learn about them, the corporation said.
Tech would be ‘conservative’ to start with
While Genius has signed nine other licensing deals in entertainment and sports so far – none of which have been announced yet – the MLB deal is “probably one of the most limited in nature,” the corporation said, adding that it did not want the characters to “go rogue.”
“These are conservative to begin with,” he explained, adding that the company has invested heavily in security and moderation, working with information security experts to stress-test the product and ensure that characters stick to a script.
Nigam said the company will seek feedback from players who want more involvement in the process. “If a player wants to get personally involved and elaborate on it based on their prerogatives, they can do that. But at least we’re going to be releasing very safe, baseline, accurate characters.”
A 12-year-old boy in BC has taken megahit online game platform Roblox to court, alleging its design is exploitative and leads to addiction. Lawyer Justin Giovannetti helped with the lawsuit. He says the case looks at whether Roblox is legally responsible for the harm caused by people becoming addicted to its product.
The company is marketing MLB avatars to kids and teens, especially those who play games like Roblox and Fortnite or chat on platforms like Discord.
each of those sites has been target of lawsuits slant them weak restraint And violation of privacy. Some parents claim the sites have kept their children in touch hunter adult or made it easier for them access inappropriate content. Efforts to tighten security controls not closed at all Without any restrictions.
“I can’t promise that 100 percent of edge cases have been accounted for,” Nigam said, referring to unexpected extreme situations that occur outside the parameters of an AI bot’s design.
“Of course there are some unknowns. But the key ones are – 100 percent. And we will get better over time.”
