ANGELS WIN WORLD SERIES …. with artificial intelligence (Tribune creation with ChatGPT).

Anyone remember the 1987 song by R.E.M. entitled “It’s The End of the World As We Know it (And I Feel Fine)”?

That notion occurred to me when I saw an article complaining about the impact of “ai” (artificial intelligence) on many forms of creativity. “It’s the end of art,” he lamented, noting that hyper-fast computing systems can create all kinds of images, music, fiction, etc. at blinding speeds and are constantly becoming improved and more sophisticated.

Well, why not apply that to the world of sports? I mean, what wouldn’t be appealing about having the power to easily create a photorealistic “world” – complete with voice-overs and crowd noise – of one’s favorite loser team (perhaps my Angels) triumphing before adoring masses in Anaheim?

The interface – based on spoken or written “prompts”– can create on your screen almost any image or situation you can imagine. Your characters can be given accents, quirks, personalities, et al. Folks with too much free time can build entire leagues – even create brand new sports – in which it’s possible to control everything or not much at all to watch it all play out.

In a world where ticket prices are prohibitive and you need a bloodhound to find the streaming service that is broadcasting the Dodger game, why not take the action out of the hands of the billionaire owners and churn up a favorite team that plays nothing but exciting and (almost always) victorious games?

We’re talking about an order of sophistication far beyond that of console or PC games. You could even put yourself at the free throw line, or headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, backed by the New York Philharmonic or The Killers.

Fred Astaire (great dancer!) recorded a song called “They All Laughed” about how hard it is to convince people of what ultimately became The Next Big Thing.

So … are you laughing? Personally, I feel fine.