Brooklyn Nets Governor Talks Artificial Intelligence After Recent NBA Buzz

Joe Tsai spoke at CNBC’s ‘CONVERGE’ thought leadership event in Singapore in comments worth contrasting to those of other NBA figures.

May 9, 2019; New York City, NY, USA; Joe Tsai (left) looks on during the second half of the preseason WNBA game between the New York Liberty and the China National Team at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Brooklyn Nets governor Joe Tsai recently appeared at CNBC’s ‘CONVERGE’ thought leadership event in Singapore to discuss myriad topics, including the future of artificial intelligence (AI).

AI is an increasingly important and prevalent topic in society that is also starting to reach the basketball world. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in January that AI could be “extraordinarily helpful” when it came to player injuries.

Sixers Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey recently said that his organization used large language models (LLMs) "as a vote in any decision." Morey added that "if it's shown that they have a better track record than scouts, we might weigh the LLMs or use multiple LLMs as one or two votes out of the process."

That led to a pointed response from former 76ers forward Marcus Morris Sr. on Yahoo! Sports’ KOC Show. He was on the Sixers for a stretch of the 2023-24 season, with Morey in his position of power in the organization.

“I don't trust Daryl Morey - I think he's thinking too far ahead of the way basketball needs to be played,” Morris said. “Understand how the team needs to gel first before talking about AI. What does AI do? I understand the effects it can have in other spots, maybe the offense, the numbers [...] but telling you guys what guys you should choose, or which guy fits what you’re trying to do? What has he won?” 

Tsai’s comments at the CNBC event, although speaking in broad terms about what his company Alibaba is doing in AI, are worth paying close attention to. Tsai’s company is making strong headwinds in the area, having recently revealed the new version of its AI reasoning model in March and also partnering with the new Chinese AI agent Manus (AI agents perform tasks with different degrees of autonomy). 

“I think the quality of research can really be improved if a lot of the mundane, research-related stuff can be done by the machine, and then humans can apply their judgement and make better recommendations,” Tsai said. “I don’t think it’ll entirely replace human beings. It’ll just actually enhance the quality of work.”

The Nets governor is excited about the means for AI to improve "human productivity." A lot of financial benefits can also come from implementing AI, he said, including a $10 total addressable market (TAM) that would dwarf transportation and health care insurance in that area. Tsai's Alibaba can "benefit a lot from the deployment of AI" when it comes to cloud computing infrastructure, advertising or food delivery.

The Nets' owner also commented on artificial general intelligence (AGI), calling it "kind of that ultimate ideal" in the world of AI. He added that AGI is a"very interesting philosophical" question for him. AGI refers to a type of AI that would essentially match human thinking and change the way the world is today. It is predicted to be achievable by 2028 and likely sooner.

Tsai said: “If you think about AI as the training and the education of kids — a lot of us have children — what is the meaning, what is the value of educating your child so that they can be a Nobel Prize winner in every subject matter there is in the world? What is the value of having kids that have read every single book in the library, and they are very book smart, but as a parent, I still have to teach my kids [emotional intelligence]. I still have to teach my kids how to make friends, how to deal with other people, how to manage society and friendships and relationships.”

Morris alluded to this emotional intelligence on his Yahoo! appearance, mentioning that Morey had told James Harden that he was “gonna do something for him” — a new contract — and reneged. That led to a well-documented public fallout between the now-Clippers point guard and the still-Sixers decision maker.

Tsai, on the other hand, seems particularly preoccupied with how human emotions and experiences can be replicated by AI — or if they even can be. In the basketball world, a lot of work can be done solely through looking at numbers, but there also comes a point where evaluators have to look at the tape, speak to coaches and learn a player’s background. AI, so far, cannot truly decipher the mind of a 17-year-old college freshman or intuitively have prolonged conversations over multiple years with a player and his family.

“To really, truly have something that behaves and acts like a human being, and makes decisions like a human being, you have to develop a lot of other capabilities,” Tsai pondered. “I don’t even know if it’s even possible.”

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