AI IN SPORTS DESIGN

MORE IS BETTER... RIGHT?

"Creating" has become less of a verb, a process and an expression, and more of a passive means to an end - courtesy of Ai image and video generators.

Companies large and small alike have been consumed by the movement towards Ai content for all their visual needs; from day to day, always-on content through to massive promotional and paid campaigns.

Now, there's no secret to the quality of content that Ai can produce. It's amazing. The speed at which it supplies you with a generated image or video, the high fidelity quality of the visuals. It's astounding to be honest.

So, what's the issue...?

When you choose anything else over humanity for the "sake of humanity" you've already lost the plot. Companies that use Ai for their content generation aren't thinking of creatives and artists that create for a living. They don't consider the craft, skill, time, effort and other resources poured into their profession when they prompt an image or video generation model that mindlessly spits out content. They don't consider humans in general, quite frankly.

They do it with a vision aligned with budgets, time and in the name of "optimisation" and "cost effectiveness".

Paired with an ethical dilemma of Ai being trained on data stolen (or questionably acquired, if you'd like to sugarcoat it) from artists, designers and creatives, it is no wonder why it receives so much pushback from the people in the creative spaces.

Am I saying it’s wrong to use Ai? Not at all. If anything, Ai should be leveraged as a tool. And what does this entail? Examples would include the creation of assets to be used within designs, the upscaling of images for better quality, the removal of unwanted artifacts like noise etc.

Now, this is of course from the viewpoint of a creative. But let's look at Ai generated content from a audience's perspective.

The South African URC (United Rugby Championship) Account recently posted a collaborative reel on Instagram displaying a Stormers Rugby Jersey, flying out of a street side poster into a screen resembling the likes of a Time's Square Digital Billboard.

Apart from the post conceptually not making any sense whatsoever, the comments were overwhelmingly negative, calling out the Stormers for using Ai on their pages while the area they reside in (the Western Cape, South Africa) is rich in talent, with creatives hoping for opportunities such as the above.

The backlash seemed to have taken it's toll as the Stormers have since revoked the collaboration after briefly deactivating the ability to comment on the post.

This was indeed a wise decision and shows that the effect Ai Content can have on a brand is highly detrimental.

While the Stormers have learned from their faults (and hopefully will continue to) the South African and Global URC accounts have yet to do so:

The issue with Ai is that it is inherently not humanity-first orientated. If you're using Ai to spew out content to keep your viewers and audiences entertained, then you don't really care much for them. You, as the "creative" , do not care about the content, and thus, you do not care about what your audiences see. The question then is: Do you really care about your audiences at all?

These are the people (in the Sport realms) that are supposed to support you and your team. The people you'd want to care about your brand, to show up for those matches, to buy those tickets, to sing in those seats.

Otherwise you might as well just have Ais in your stands cheering you on - wouldn't that be a blast to prompt? "Supply me with a full stadium of loyal, vocal supporters"

Support your supporters. Support your creatives. Support humanity.