Red Sox Reportedly Let AI Handle Interviews For Baseball Ops Position

We all get a little bit worried about AI taking our jobs, but I had never really considered the idea of AI standing between you and getting a job, but a new report claims that's what applicants for a baseball operations job with the Boston Red Sox had to deal with. 

According to NBC Sports Boston, Yahoo Sports reporter Joon Lee appeared on the network's Arbella Early Edition and claimed that the Red Sox had taken what sure seems like a hands-off approach to hiring.

"What's happening with the Red Sox, with Sam Kennedy, with Craig Breslow, with Alex Cora, is a state of organizational dysfunction," Lee said. "I heard last night about an interview with -- the Red Sox were trying to recruit a new person for their baseball operations department, and during this interview process, the entire interview was conducted with an AI bot, where you would record the answers to the questions and then the Red Sox would then evaluate them."

"And this wasn't just one round. It wasn't just two rounds. It was five rounds of interviews where this person did not talk to another person in the Red Sox organization.

Wait… what?

A new report suggests that the Boston Red Sox used an AI bot to conduct an interview for a baseball ops position. (Getty Images)

So the Red Sox are just letting artificial intelligence run interviews with prospective candidates? Are they letting those same bots make trades now too?

I can kind of understand why you might let AI take the reins on interviews for certain jobs. Like, if you're trying to find someone to scoop ice cream or drive a radio station van — having done both — I bet AI could save you a little bit of time and weed out any potential flunkies for you.

However, while it's not brain surgery or even regular surgery (which from my understanding is much, much easier), you'd think that there's a bit more nuance in baseball ops to warrant having a human being with a pulse on hand to run the interview, just to make sure that the AI bot doesn't goof up and tell the guy or gal that they'll make the next Moneyball to pound sand.

Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow responded to the report.

"My understanding is there's like an initial screening, and that’s used as a first filter, and then there's human interactions and conversations in person. I’ve had a number of conversations in person and over zooms with people we’ve hired," Breslow said, per MLB.com's Ian Browne.

I get that, but it sounds like it was a bit more than a first filter.