The WWE’s leap into generative AI is already proving embarrassing
- The WWE’s turn into AI has not been fruitful so far.
- The company recently pulled an AI-altered video offline that showed one of its champions wearing a belt from a rival promotion, including the rival’s logo.
- It has failed to use AI recently in writing as the software is unable to understand certain intricacies in wrestling.
A video package produced by the entertainment giant, WWE, for its subsidiary AAA Wrestling was pulled from the internet after it was aired. The package shows the son of masked wrestling legend Rey Mysterio, Dominick Mysterio, wearing the AEW World Championship, including the rival company’s logo.
It is a mistake akin to Apple revealing a new smartphone with Samsung’s logo on its back. The AI-generated video clip was scrubbed from the internet soon after it aired, but not before fans took screenshots of the moment to post online, like the image below.
Unfortunately, it managed to see live TV, as it was included in the debut of AAA on Fox Latin America.
Dominick Mysterio, AEW champ?
Mysterio is currently the WWE Intercontinental Champion and the AAA Megachampion, and is shown in an AI-altered video wearing the rival promotion’s top title. The WWE pulled the video off social media and soon after, its website, which now returns an “access denied” notification.
It is an embarrassing mistake for a major corporation, but one likely to matter little in the long run. However, it should be a learning moment for the world wrestling leader, especially as it recently announced it was heading full into AI to help with its creative content.
Per the Wrestling Observer, the WWE recently hired a new senior director of creative strategy in Cyrus Kowsari, who has been tasked to oversee the company’s transition to “AI-based storytelling.” The report includes that the company already attempted two separate AI writing experiments to no avail.
The first was scrapped because the AI in use “couldn’t understand wrestling storylines,” while the second was a partnership with a platform called Writer AI. This second attempt, also proved fruitless, as the AI could likewise not comprehend the intricacies of wrestling storylines, and especially the concept of “kayfabe.”
Pro-wrestling is among the very few forms of entertainment that simultaneously blends fiction and fact into its storytelling. Imagine a director changed a movie half-way because a pair of actors genuinely didn’t like each other behind the scenes. Their characters rewritten as enemies because of their authentic animosity.
This has happened in the WWE on numerous occasions. Too many to count actually.
This complex blending of story and reality may be too much for current forms of generative AI to comprehend, at least until they see further training on the subject which behind the lights and sparkly spandex is a nearly $10 billion industry.
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