US to install air conditioning at 2024 Paris Olympics
The Olympic Village in Paris will not have air conditioning due to environmental concerns, but several countries, including the United States, will bring their own.
Iconic sportscaster Al Michaels will be joining the coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics… sort of.
NBC announced Wednesday that it will use artificial intelligence to recreate Michaels' voice to deliver personalized Olympics recaps every day of this year's games.
Michaels' likeness will be featured on Peacock's “Daily Olympics Recaps,” which will provide users with a customized playlist of highlights from the previous day's “most relevant” competitions. The clips will be narrated by a “high-quality” AI version of Michaels' voice, which NBC said was trained to match Michaels' “signature expertise and reading style” based on his past experience with NBC.
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Michaels currently serves as the play-by-play announcer for Amazon Prime Video's “Thursday Night Football,” but previously served as the play-by-play announcer for NBC's “Sunday Night Football” from 2006 to 2022. He is no longer with the network's NFL coverage, but remains an NBC announcer emeritus.
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Michaels said that when NBC approached him with the idea of using AI to create a replica of himself, he was initially “very skeptical,” but after hearing the AI's voice, he changed his mind.
“I'll be honest with you, it was amazing. It was amazing,” he said. “And a little scary.”
“Not only was it close, it was about 2 percent away from perfection,” Michaels added. “I thought, wow.”
NBC said there will be about 7 million personalized versions of “Peacock's daily Olympics recaps” throughout the Olympics. The feature will be available to Peacock users of the app and will launch on July 27, the day after the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.
