, and the ability to use the data and recognize patterns… is what the AI did throughout the course of the game,” Freedman said. “So I think the role of human ingenuity is safe for now, and AI is a tool to be deployed to optimize decisions, but not to make them.”
The AI-controlled game went smoothly – in fact, the AI made all of the same choices regarding pitching changes, lineup construction, and pinch hitters that Miles would have made. The only time that Miles had to override the AI was to replace the starting catcher with his backup, since he was sick.
Miles took his temporary replacement by AI in stride – perhaps because he knows that his job is not actually in jeopardy. In a video posted to the Ballers’ Instagram, Miles walks to home plate before the game to shake hands with the opposing team’s manager – only instead of offering his own hand, he extends the tablet running the AI out for a handshake.
But the use of AI struck a nerve for Oakland fans, who see companies like OpenAI – which powered Distillery’s baseball AI – as enterprises that prioritize “winning” the AI race over shipping products that have been properly tested for safety. For many fans, the AI experiment felt like a betrayal, similar to the kind of corporate greed that pushed three professional sports franchises out of Oakland in five years.
“There goes the Ballers trying to appeal to Bay Area techies instead of baseball fans,” one commenter wrote. “It’s so over for Oakland.”
This backlash wasn’t what the Ballers expected, and Freedman does not intend to repeat this AI experiment. But the reaction of the fans models a larger cultural tension in baseball and beyond.
“It never feels good to have your fans be like, ‘We hate this,’” Freedman said. “But it’s not a bad thing that there’s more of a conversation about the pluses and minuses of this new technology now, as opposed to like, a decade later when it’s too late.”
