Artificial intelligence (AI) is a program with the ability to analyze and process data faster than any sports analyst, as it rapidly spits out summaries of events, and might possibly take over the world. Well, maybe not, but all of the aforementioned is rapidly becoming more and more possible. In the present day world with advanced technologies and invaluable discoveries, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ has been thrown around a lot in various forms, but really the question being asked is, where is it headed? Artificial intelligence, which has a wide variety of outlets, can change the way people watch and play sports.

Computers are already being programmed in writing short and sweet summaries of sporting events based on the box score. In India, for example, scientists Rahul Anand Sharma and C.V. Jawahar from IIIT Hyderabad paired with Pramod Sankar K of Xerox Research Center to publish a paper explaining how they programmed the artificial intelligence into the machines that were then  able to generate text-based commentary with accuracy rates of 90%. The computers had to analyze hundreds of hours of cricketing videos on YouTube of the Indian Premier League and use algorithms to match the videos with the correct commentaries. This was done using visual-recognition techniques where the computer is able to accurately label a batsman’s cricketing shot.

“To learn such a representation, several examples are needed. A computer program then learns from these examples using machine learning algorithms, and tags parts of the video with these labels,” Jawahar told India’s NDTV.

Although this new form of AI has come far already, it will be a while before it will be able to process the quick pace of sports, like football or soccer. This is simply because it is too much for computers to process all at once and the sports themselves are all different. However, the team has already made attempts at AI commentary for tennis, bringing that milestone closer to American borders.

Robotic journalists are already beginning to play a role, putting human sports journalists’ jobs at risk. Associated Press teamed up with Automated Insights, a U.S. based language generation software provider, to produce machine-generated stories on college baseball and earnings reports. Narrative Science is using its AI platform, Quill, to automatically manufacture reports. However, this technology is still far from perfection and everyday use, so sports journalists and commentators are safe in their careers for now.

AI in sports also has advantages not previously mentioned. In the world of professional sports, athletes spend hours watching videos of themselves and their opponents to learn weaknesses and strengths, then being able to work on their own or exploit those of the opposing. When a machine comes into the picture with rapid data processing and analysis, these athletes can spend more time training rather than studying. Coaches will be able to quickly identify where the team needs more work and create strategies on ways to defeat the other team based on their faults. Also, during a game, these new sports AIs will be able to make the right call after instantly viewing the live feed, putting to bed the issue of biased referees.

AI in sports is something no one saw coming, but now it is on the horizon. Computer algorithms will be able to identify and give text-based commentary on games based on scoring and visual-recognition. Athletes and coaches will have access to swift results on strategies and the advantages and disadvantages of themselves or the opponent. There will no longer be anger or debate of partial referees. Of course, there is the oncoming threat to sports writers and narrators but in many cases, human emotion and decision simply cannot be replaced. AI is still developing, as all technology does, so do not expect to watch a robot-commentated game anytime soon.