Have hope, White Sox fans! Or at least fairly young White Sox fans. AI is on your side!
Yep. Or, at least, the ChatGPT version of AI.
My son, Will, sent me a link to an intense bit of research that shows the Chicago White Sox will indeed win the World Series. Maybe even sooner than you think, depending on how big a pessimist you are.
The information is currently on many types of social media, but apparently originated with the site collegebaseballhub.com. They say they asked famed artificial intelligence
source ChatGPT to name the World Series winners for the next half-century and, by golly, the White Sox showed up!
Take a look at this chart, and rejoice:
If you look long enough, you’ll see that the White Sox will be hoisting that trophy again in 2055! If that seems a trifle long wait, bear in mind the first time AI predictions were run and the results hit the web, the Sox didn’t win the World Series until 2070. So this set of predictions is cutting 15 years off your wait. Even better, the other version had the Cubs winning it all in 2030 while this one doesn’t have them on the list at all.
You may note the Sox only get to be champions after many teams that don’t exist, coming in right after the Packers and ahead of something called Forest, and also few years after the four-year title run of North Japan (no doubt a team with offspring of Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani). That may be discouraging, but it’s still a 2055 championship instead of 2070.
Now, of course, ChatGPT and other forms of AI are like any search engines in that they only answer the question or request they get, so wording is crucial. Will tried a direct White Sox question and was told 2040 was a possibility, which is barely long to wait at all by Sox fan standards. I don’t know how he worded the question, but I tried “When will the World Series next win the World Series” and the response was rather mealy-mouthed:
There’s no reliable way to predict when the White Sox will next win the World Series. Championship windows shift with roster moves, player development, injuries, and front‑office strategy. As of now, the best answer is: It’s uncertain, but possible once their young core matures and the team rebuilds into contention again.
Well, that’s a whole lot better. And a change of phrase hinted at a possibility sometime in the 2030s. So I also asked Microsoft’s Copilot and got a very long answer, the gist of which was:
Predicting a specific year is impossible—and no reputable projection attempts to. But based on:
- current roster construction,
- farm system trajectory,
- and comparative league strength,
the earliest plausible window is several years out, and only if their rebuild accelerates dramatically.
Not really encouraging, but not a total shot to the gut, either.
Now 2070, or even 2055, is a tad far out for those of us in the geriatric set, but you young whippersnappers may yet have an opportunity to see a White Sox World Series win on the south side or in Nashville or northwest Indiana or Shanghai or wherever they may be playing, and good luck to you.
Of course, any AI is only as good as the information it gathers, which means one absolutely critical piece of information is bound to be missing because they weren’t looking for it — just how long Jerry Reinsdrof will live.
Reinsdorf is 89, and even if he hangs on to be 100 just to spite the players and fans he hates, 2070 or 2055 would appear to be a stretch. But 2040 would appear to be possible, because if he died at 100 that would be three years later.
“Three years after Jerry Reinsdorf dies” may be the best guess at a White Sox championship, because that gives enough time for a new owner to clear out the organizational incompetents who only have their jobs because of where they firmly secure their lips, and to sign a star-level free agent or two. But it’s understandable that AI systems don’t want to appear ghoulish, what with their need for political support and all. At least not yet.
So, 2055 or 2070 it is. You might want to hold off if you get an email from the White Sox trying to sell you World Series tickets.
