According to veteran sports commentator John Buccigross (via The Chirping Zebras Podcast), EA Sports has used generative AI for replicating real-life commentators in the upcoming NHL 27. Buccigross has revealed that he’ll definitely be in the game, although EA has used gen AI to create and add voice lines this time.
“They’re using some AI now; they played me some stuff back of my voice,” said Buccigross. “It’s like ‘Wow, that’s pretty good!’ If that means less work but the same check, I’ll take it. Sometimes AI will get something wrong. One of the guys was playing it back, and a lot of these guys maybe aren’t hardcore sports fans; they’re video game extrordinares. They’re not always up on the vernacular. So they’re playing back my AI voice, and they’re like, ‘Score! And the crowd gets out of their chairs!’ I was like, ‘No, they’re not chairs. They look like chairs, but we call them seats.’
“So, little things like that, you gotta go back and listen because words matter. […] But then you can make AI smarter; in the future they’ll say seats, they won’t say chairs. You have to manually put that in. That was kind of a funny anecdote from the process.”
Although it’s not revealed how much of the voice lines in NHL 27 are actually his own and made by gen AI, but still, the fact that AI is currently being used to this extent in the industry should raise some concerns, at least. Generative AI has been creeping up in many AAA blockbusters in the recent times including even Call of Duty and Battlefield games, but in those cases, the AI was used strictly for content creation and nowhere close to the degree as it’s in NHL 27.
Also, all titles available through Steam are obligated to notify AI usage on their respective pages but as NHL is not on Steam, there’s no such disclaimer either.
NHL 27 is set to release on September 11 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
