Pat McAfee has made it very clear that when it comes to “journalistic standards,” critics can take their concerns and shove them.
If there’s any editorial field at the moment that presents issues around basic standards and factual correctness, it would be generative AI. Tuesday, The Pat McAfee Show dedicated a segment of their show not just to AI but specifically to Grok, the “AI search assistant” from Elon Musk’s xAI.
“Let’s go through all of the big storylines coming out of the first week of the NFL season. Not from us, we’re not smart enough. We have some journalistic standards around here. Let’s go to AI!,” said McAfee as he introduced a segment called The Grok Says… “So. we put into The Grok on The X and said ‘What’s the biggest takeaway from Week 1 of the NFL season?’ The Grok says about ten things that need to be talked about.”
From there, McAfee stood and read out the results from their Grok search, which included a very generic rundown of Week 1’s games and performances. The other members of the show would yell out phrases in support of Grok in between each item on the list.
THAT’S WHAT THE GROK SAYS #PMSLive https://t.co/OvKqbtREOq pic.twitter.com/rRv2bAY8Dk
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 10, 2024
At the end of the segment, McAfee said that Grok is “a nice little weapon” and explained how to find it on X. He also noted that he uses the bot on College GameDay as a resource when he needs to learn more about players he isn’t familiar with.
“AI is the future,” said McAfee. “Grok knows ball.”
Whether it was constructed to be informative, funny, or satirical, it certainly came off as a very positive piece of PR for X’s Grok.
During ESPN’s media day in late August, McAfee discussed using product placement in his program and how that could change the revenue model for their kind of shows.
Grok has come under fire various times over the way it has summarized notable events with questionable or outright incorrect results. It recently attributed a quote to Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy that he never said, claimed a USA-Serbia Olympic basketball game ended in a tie, misunderstood Bronny James memes as factual, and said Joe Biden dropped out of the Presidential race to focus on playing College Football ’25.
ESPN also recently had an AI kerfuffle of their own. A few days after introducing generative AI recaps of NWSL matches, their write-up of Alex Morgan’s final match failed to mention her at all. It was later edited and corrected by a human.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.