NASCAR addresses use of AI to make playoff format changes, competition decisions

Artificial Intelligence, best known as AI, is an en vogue technology for many — and with mixed results. And NASCAR seems to be ready to wade into the mix of incorporating AI into its product.

The racing series could possibly use the technology for the thinking and decision making processes for various functions of the sport, like playoff format, among other things, according to NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell, who shared the idea with SBJ. He explained some of the thinking behind it.

“Just around racing, the strategy that now goes into a race, how that applies to our formats of the future, I think AI can play a really big role in that,” O’Donnell said. “When we created even the stages or playoff format, you did that with the best data you had and best minds you had, but now being able to plug in and work with AI in terms of, ‘OK, if you tweak the playoffs this way, what should we be watching out for’ or ‘How much could that affect the sport?’ There’s so much data and technology out there that you can now throw into a model, I think it’s going to be very helpful in looking at some predictive analysis of where the sport can go in the future and then there’s the whole business side of things too.”

While generative AI has failed to pass muster, largely, for producing written work or images that can rival what trained humans produce, it could have uses to NASCAR.

For example, if NASCAR was pondering altering the number of drivers in the playoffs, an AI model could process thousands and thousands of variations of a season with that ruleset and give decision makers some insight into the effects their choice might have and what various far-reaching or unexpected consequences it might have.

There are other considerations, too, as AI models have come under scrutiny for how much energy is required to make them operate and their general environmental impact. There are also issues around the provenance of material used to train these models and if it was obtained and used through fully legal methods, i.e. comporting with copyright law before using published work to train an AI model.

And it seems that right now AI in NASCAR is still a hypothetical, but one being serious considered by the powers that be.