AI's Impacts on Sports Media

AI in Sports Media

Artificial Intelligence is advancing daily. AI is beginning to make its way into every industry, especially in sports media.

As a sports media major with a double minor in strategic communication and social media, AI has the opportunity to wipe out an abundance of of employment because it's deemed as easier, faster, better, or even a smarter way to produce content for the audience to see.

AI has already changed the way we view sports statistics, analyze play-by-play, marketing, digital creation, broadcasting, and how we consume sports. As AI continues to advance in the field of sports media, it takes away the authenticity that sports is supposed to bring to its audience. 

Ethical Dilemmas

If I am trying to write a pregame press release of a big matchup, why should I write it when AI can do it and make my job easier? 

• This is what is going to happen when it comes to anything sports media related with the implications of AI, with many taking the easier route instead of adding the human touch of creativity. 

A major part of sports media is storytelling. 

• Can you set the scene of tonight's game? Can you analyze the fans' atmosphere? Is it intense? What is the emotion or the story that can be emphasized from this game?

AI can never do that because it doesn't have the ability to draw out genuine emotion and because they were not physically there. 

The Future of AI

• If AI can analyze and complete tasks, where does that leave room for a human who is capable to do the same thing? 

With AI's rapid growth, it is not going anywhere. The sports media industry is going to have to adapt to an either resourceful tool or take advantage of it in a negative way.

AI can never replace the human aspect of creativity and authenticity. It can potentially ruin the connection human personnel brings to sports.

Online Privacy

Technology is at the forefront of our everyday lives, with our minds consumed daily. As a society, we cannot function without the assistance of various technologies guiding us through. This heavy reliance on being connected through a screen allows for continuous personal information to surface into the wrong hands. 

A simple Google search, a phone call or text, and activeness on social media, like posting or liking videos, delivers information to different network agencies that track our every move. 

Privacy is the condition of being free from observation or being disputed by others. Each app, button pressed, or interest expressed in a product or website is tracked and conducted in different segments that are used to construct detailed profiles and influence choices. With this unprecedented commodification, we have lost the ability of privacy with this constant surveillance.  

Facebook is an example of a social media app that has been tied to numerous scandals in relation to personal user data being exposed. The data that had been taken from Facebook had increased the risk of hackers, leading to scams, identity theft, and manipulation of targeted disinformation. 

The government plays a substantial role in why large quantities of data are collected from American users. The surveillance can be used for protection from foreign agencies and to protect our national security. However, this action from the government often bypasses individual consent, which leads to private interactions online being scrutinized. The line between "public safety" and "private life" becomes nonexistent or blurred.

Many times, when the government seeks to protect the American people, they often neglect security. While the government seizes every opportunity to keep tabs on the American people, citizens have a right to be protected with personal information that does not need to be shared. 

Protection from personal data being released is crucial to ensure our online privacy stays intact. Once that gets disrupted, our personal lives are next, where our devices are connected the most.

What can we do to best protect ourselves from invasion of privacy online? Digital hygiene.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Audit your apps.
• Use one-time passwords: Stop reusing the same password. In the event you do get hacked and you have the same password for everything, the hacker now has a "master key" to your life.
• Keep software updated.
• Avoid sharing personal content. 
• Treat every online app as public.

It is our personal duty to responsibly share content online, because while we think our friends and family have access, that content is actually shared with more agencies than we can imagine. The wrong person getting your private information could lead to cyber or real-life harm. 

We cannot have a free society if our privacy is constantly compromised.