Hello and welcome to Eye on AI.
The 2024 Olympic Games kick off tomorrow in Paris, where over 10,000 athletes will compete in 329 events. Also in attendance: a whole lot of AI.
From the broadcasts to security, AI is being infused throughout the Paris games. It’s not exactly surprising in this moment when AI is dominating, but what is interesting is the extent to which AI’s presence at the Olympics provides a snapshot of how quickly AI is being implemented in so many different areas from live events to broadcast, advertising, athlete performance, law enforcement, and state surveillance.
Overall the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it’s determined over 180 potential use cases for AI in the Olympics, some of which will be on display this summer. AI tools will also assist athletes with analyzing sporting performance and will be deployed to “enhance the fairness and accuracy of judging and refereeing through the provision of precise metrics,” according to IOC. Beyond the competitions themselves, some of the ways AI is being used at the Olympics seem like nothing more than marketing gimmicks, while others show how the technology could change how we interact with events and content. Then there’s the more controversial use case of surveillance that has privacy and civil liberty advocates sounding the alarm.
Last week, it was announced that Google has been named “the official search AI partner of Team USA,” marking the first time the sports organization has partnered with a tech company. Commentators with NBCUniversal—which continues to hold exclusive American media rights to the games—will use Google’s new AI search overviews to answer questions about the sports on-air. NBC has also recruited Comedian Leslie Jones to serve as “Chief Superfan Commentator,” a role that seemingly mixes entertaining fans with showing off how Google’s Gemini assistant works.
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee put out a statement hyping up the Google collaboration as a “powerful alliance that brings together the best of technology and sports” that will “inspire millions.” Even without the grandiose language, it seems like a huge stretch. Does anyone really want to watch sports commentators Google live on the air? I would bet no. Clearly, this is serving more as an ad for Google’s AI than a good use of the technology. There’s a reason Google struck this first-of-its-kind deal, likely paying a pretty penny. (Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.)
As we know, these models are still prone to making up and delivering false information. There’s a high chance the answers Gemini delivers will be less accurate than if the broadcast team researched the questions themselves. The same goes for the chatbot, powered by Intel, the IOC is rolling out for participating athletes to ask frequently asked questions regarding guidelines and procedures.
Prior to this Google deal, however, NBCUniversal announced a brand new way for fans to watch Olympic content that could actually enhance the experience and simply wouldn’t be possible without generative AI. The new feature, called Your Daily Olympic Recap, will provide users with personalized recaps of their favorite events complete with commentary provided by an AI version of legendary sportscaster Al Michaels’s voice. Users can set up their preferences and then receive a personalized recap every day of the Olympics through the Peacock app, NBC’s streaming platform that will also be airing the games.
To create the recaps, the language model behind the feature will analyze subtitles and metadata from NBC’s Olympic coverage to create summaries of the events. It will then rewrite those summaries in Michaels’s style before feeding them into a text-to-voice model. With so many different events happening simultaneously, the Olympics is not exactly easy to keep up with. Your Daily Olympic Recap actually solves a problem by compiling the parts you’re most interested in and wrapping them up in a neat package. Using Michael’s voice is the perfect bow on top, providing that legendary commentary sports fans have grown to love and expect. Time will tell if this feature works as planned, but NBC gets credit for using AI in an interesting way that actually solves a problem, rather than AI for AI’s sake.
Event organizers and the French government are also leaning on AI to monitor potential threats. Specifically, AI-powered cameras will be used to track crowd movement and detect any activity considered unusual, from suspicious luggage to traffic violations. They’ll also be collecting geolocation data and deploying camera-equipped drones. Earlier this year, the French government actually changed its laws in order to allow this use of the technology for the Olympics, passing Article 7 (a controversial provision that legalized AI-powered video surveillance before, during, and after the games) and Article 10 (which specifically permits the use of AI software to review video and camera feeds). While the technology technically isn’t based on facial recognition, many have argued that Article 7 in particular violates GDPR, the EU’s data privacy law which prohibits the processing of biometric data and gives citizens the right to have their personal data erased. It’s also a tight line to walk in light of the newly enacted EU AI Act, which explicitly bans the use of live facial recognition systems by law enforcement.
While acknowledging that such a large-scale event requires increased security, data privacy researchers and civil liberty advocates have raised concerns about giving the private technology companies involved access to thousands of cameras around France. The vague nature of how exactly the technology will be used also raises questions about what activity counts as unusual or suspicious and thus is subjected to increased surveillance, as well as how the data will be stored—and potentially used in the future. While the French Government changed the law specifically for the Olympics, the provision allows for usage of the technology far beyond the end of the games.
Anne Toomey McKenna, a law professor and attorney focused on the intersection of privacy, AI, and surveillance, argued in The Conversation that the French government and private tech sector are harnessing the legitimate need for increased security as grounds to deploy advanced surveillance and data gathering tools.
“Flagging these events seems like a logical and sensible use of technology. But the real privacy and legal questions flow from how these systems function and are being used,” she wrote. “How much and what types of data have to be collected and analyzed to flag these events? What are the systems’ training data, error rates and evidence of bias or inaccuracy? What is done with the data after it is collected, and who has access to it? There’s little in the way of transparency to answer these questions.“
And with that, here’s more AI news.
Sage Lazzaro
sage.lazzaro@consultant.fortune.com
sagelazzaro.com
