Bill White: Technology’s use in sports sometimes deserves a red card

August 1, 2026 - 17:27

When I first started teaching journalism, the biggest tech worry was a student copying a paragraph from an encyclopedia CD-ROM. Now, I watch college kids type a prompt into a chatbot and get a full column in seconds. The advent of artificial intelligence in sports writing has officially made me glad I retired from the classroom.

It is not just about plagiarism anymore. The new tools can generate game recaps, player stats, and even opinion pieces that sound almost human. But here is the thing: they still miss the smell of the locker room, the awkward silence after a coach gives a one-word answer, and the nervous laugh of a rookie who just made his first start. That is the real story, and no algorithm can capture it.

I remember teaching students to ask the dumb question, the one everyone else is afraid to ask. AI will never do that. It will give you a safe, polished paragraph that reads like every other article on the wire. So, while I am glad I am not grading those papers anymore, I do feel for the young reporters trying to find their voice in a world that wants them to sound like a machine.