Is it fair for fantasy football managers to rely on AI?

Alice Simpson likes to play fantasy football.

She gains and loses points depending on how her players perform in their games, as she picks a team of real-life players from England's premier league.

She can bring in a new player and get rid of another. Fantasy managers take it very seriously because it is a very competitive hobby.

You need to be very knowledgeable about football and follow the league very closely. That used to be the case.

Managers have been able to use a number of providers of fantasy football artificial intelligence software. These programs can help you find the best football players for you.

It is the same with the American football version. Is it not possible to use such systems?

Ms Simpson has been playing fantasy football for six years and started using artificial intelligence in order to gain an edge in her friends' mini-league.

The teacher says that the best thing about the technology is that it helps remove biases.

Ms Simpson says that sometimes we have a dislike for a player as they did not perform well for you the last time you owned them, or maybe they play for a rival team to one you support.

Currently in second place in her league as the 2021-22 football season draws to a close, she gets her artificial intelligence assistance from one of the UK's most popular providers - Fantasy Football Fix. It launched a free and subscription-based premium service in the summer of 2018, and now has 500,000 users.

The software tries to predict the future performance of each and every player and team in the league. It suggests that fantasy football managers pick and change players.

Fantasy Football Fix's Tom Brown claims that the tech works so well that when we run bots using our artificial intelligence technology they finish in the top 1% of all the nine million fantasy football managers.

If a real life football manager rotates their players unpredictably, such as Manchester City'sPep Guardiola, it can cause the artificial intelligence to get tripped-up.

Despite all our efforts, there is no rhyme or pattern for how he does things, and that makes it hard to implement an algorithm, says Mr Moss.

If it knows what players are going to be on the pitch, it can make very good predictions.

There is no way to predict when someone like Pep will drop one of his players for someone else.

Fantasy football is popular in the UK with more than nine million players, but not in North America where similar games are more popular.

More than 50 million people play fantasy sports in the US and Canada. American football or the National Football League version is the most popular of the three sports.

One of the most popular fantasy American football leagues is free.

Since 2020, users have been able to get help with which players to trade. IBM asked its artificial intelligence computer to start studying the National Football League, thanks to a collaboration between the two companies.

The trade assistant uses artificial intelligence to listen to TV and radio shows, and to gauge the opinion of experts and other commentators.

This information is used to suggest that a fantasy football manager makes a player change.

One of the architects behind the tie-up is an IBM engineer. This is a hard problem to solve, and fantasy American football is a hard problem to solve.

He says that he can enjoy the game more now that the heavy lifting is done by Artificial Intelligence.

Is it fair to use artificial intelligence to improve your performance? James Pritchard, a fantasy football player from North Wales, says that it is not for him.

Locomotive Llandudno is top of a mini-league of 18 friends as the current season nears an end.

The 49-year-old public relations consultant says that he wouldn't use Artificial Intelligence.

I trust my judgement about football against a computer. I watch a lot of football and keep an eye on the premier league.

If I used artificial intelligence, I wouldn't have my friends.