USA to equip the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris with air conditioning
The Olympic Village in Paris does not have air conditioning for environmental reasons, but several countries, including the United States, will bring their own.
Legendary sportscaster Al Michaels will be part of the coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics… sort of.
NBC announced Wednesday that it will use artificial intelligence to imitate Michaels’ voice to deliver daily personalized recaps of this year’s Olympics.
Michaels’ likeness is used in “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock,” which offers users a customized playlist of highlights from the previous day’s events “most relevant to them.” The clips are narrated by a “high-quality” AI version of Michaels’ voice. NBC said the AI was trained using his previous experience at NBC to achieve his “signature expertise and oratory.”
Michaels is currently the live voice of “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon Prime Video, and before that he was the voice of “Sunday Night Football” on NBC from 2006 to 2022. Although he has left the network’s NFL coverage, he is still emeritus at NBC.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Michaels said he was initially “very skeptical” when NBC approached him with the idea of using artificial intelligence to create a copy of him, but when he heard what the AI sounded like, he changed his mind.
“Honestly, it was amazing. It was unbelievable,” he said. “And it was a little scary.”
“It wasn’t just close, it was almost 2% off ideal,” Michaels added. “I’m like, whoa.”
According to NBC, there will be nearly seven million possible personalized variations of “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock” during the Olympics. The feature will be available to Peacock users in the app and will launch on July 27, one day after the Summer Games opening ceremony.
