Player AI
By Muhammad Omar Iftikhar
Dastaan Publishing
ISBN: 978-969-969-955-6
41pp.

After seeing the Pakistan cricket team in action (read ‘inaction’) in the just-concluded ICC Men’s T20 World Cup staged in the West Indies and the USA, of all the places, where the Men in Green lost their opening encounter to USA, of all the teams, to just tumble downhill from there, the novelette Player AI, was a pleasurable read.

It allowed one to fantasise replacing all our players with android replicas who run on artificial intelligence (AI).

Player AI by Muhammad Omar Iftikhar is a story about when the Pakistan Cricket Alliance (PCA) — not PCB (it’s a fictional story remember?) — is faced with a difficult dilemma about what to do when the T20 Cricket World Cup in Australia is upon their heads and the skipper of the national team is suffering from a terminal illness.

Skipper Yasir Ehsan is irreplaceable, at least not by any other human being. After being appointed as the team captain, he had led from the front and was able to breathe new life into the national team by showing faith in his players. He would stand up for his men in front of the selectors and was liked and respected by the media as well. He inspired, he won matches.

A science fiction novelette imagines a funny scenario where the Pakistan cricket team is surreptitiously led at a World Cup by an AI-programmed android instead of its regular charismatic captain

“There were not many captains who played with their hearts and gave their best on the field. Yasir was one of them. He still used his 2007 model car, despite having enough money to buy a fleet of new cars. The leading brands, including manufacturers of carbonated drinks and telecommunication companies, wanted him to appear in their advertisements. He appeared when he had time. He was saving money for his family.”

The other players looked up to Yasir; they were not looking to replace him. He could only be replaced by Player-AI. And who is that? Well, as the story goes, the PCA, in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology, had been secretly working for some time on creating a line of players to assist humans on the team, such as play in the third man’s position or serve as bowlers during practice, who could record action from various angles since they were fitted with cameras in their eyes with 850x zoom.

Now, one such android is to replace the team captain Yasir. It is to be programmed, using AI, to move like Yasir, to play and speak like him, so much so that it will be able to fool the world and the media if the Pakistan team and the management can keep the secret.

Yasir himself is happy and excited to know this. He can now concentrate on his treatment and getting better, on a heavily guarded private floor in a hospital, instead of stressing and feeling guilty about leaving his boys alone during such a big event.

Of course, things are not done as easily as said. There are still several problems that the PCA has to find a way around. For instance, Player-AI’s batteries can only run for two hours at optimal performance, before needing to be recharged. Otherwise, its system would shut down and, in that case, the android will just freeze or fall down.

Another issue is eating. The android cannot eat or drink. So it doesn’t eat with the other players but eats separately, as he is said to be following a strict keto diet. And it cannot pass through the body scanners at the airport. “The scanner will respond even if Player-AI walks through it naked.” Well, we aren’t Pakistanis if we can’t get around things to find solutions or simply cover up. This book is all about that.

Still, not everyone is that stupid or gullible. How to explain to the media when the wrong accent gets programmed into Player-AI and it starts chatting in an Australian accent? He is practising the Australian accent, of course. He has a great sense of humour. Of course, of course.

And what about when the commentators and world notice him going through a wardrobe malfunction? Or was he just wearing his trousers the wrong way round as he takes his guard on the pitch? And what about when, while inserting commands, Player-AI is accidentally installed with an actor’s mimicry programmme, to shake its hips as if there are ants in his pants? Even the laptop, the virtual headset and the special gloves through which it is being run by its controller, Shoaib, cannot overcome such human errors.

Mistakes happen and people can become nervous, acting out of character like this. Except that Player-AI is not one of those ‘people’. It is a machine with an artificial mind that is evolving. It can’t be so easily dumbed down to look realistic.

“The AI interface was using millions of algorithms within a fraction of a second to respond to how to play the shots. He scored 43 runs off 17 deliveries, which included five sixes and three boundaries.”

Playing so well drains its batteries fast and, when brought back using some excuse or the other to recharge the batteries, Player-AI also gets mad and speaks coldly to his controller and the PCA chief.

So will Player-AI lead Pakistan to victory, or go rogue? You’ll need to read the book to know that.

The reviewer is a business consultant

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, June 30th, 2024