Did Sports Illustrated publish pieces created by AI? The furore over it

Sports Illustrated is feeling the heat. The once renowned US sports magazine has been accused of using content and bios of fake authors created by Artificial Intelligence. The biographies of the authors have now been deleted from the website and a disclaimer has been added to the articles. Let’s take a closer look: What happened? The report published by Futurism stated that the photos of a number of authors on the SI website seemingly came from a website that provides AI-generated headshots. For example, the biography of a writer named “Drew Ortiz” stated, “Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn’t out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents’ farm”. The picture of “Drew Ortiz” was available on the website with the description “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes”. As per The Guardian, a piece written by “Drew Ortiz” stated, “Volleyball is one of the most popular sports in the world, and for good reason. It’s fast-paced, has a high skill ceiling, and is generally an exciting sport to both play and watch. Even people who don’t watch sports can easily understand the intensity and skill required to play volleyball whenever they watch clips. There’s a reason why it’s been such a mainstay in modern sports to this day.” As per Business Insider, the piece warned that the sport “can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.”

Meanwhile, another writer was named “Sora Tanaka”.

Her bio stated: “Sora has always been a fitness guru, and loves to try different foods and drinks. Ms Tanaka is thrilled to bring her fitness and nutritional expertise to the Product Reviews Team, and promises to bring you nothing but the best of the best.” The bio “Sora Tanaka” claims she is a product reviewer. As per Futurism, Tonaka’s picture on the website is listed under “joyful Asian young-adult female with long brown hair and brown eyes.” One individual involved in the process of content creation told Futurism on condition of anonymity, “There’s a lot [of fake authors] “I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist.” “At the bottom [of the page] there would be a photo of a person and some fake description of them like, ‘oh, John lives in Houston, Texas. He loves yard games and hanging out with his dog, Sam.’ Stuff like that. It’s just crazy.” “The content is absolutely AI-generated,” a second source told the outlet.

“No matter how much they say that it’s not.”

The bios of the fake writers were deleted from the website after Futurism contacted Sports Illustrated’s publisher the Arena Group. Articles that were purportedly written by AI now come with the following disclaimers: “This content is created by a third party” and “The Sports Illustrated editorial staff are not involved in the creation of this content”. ‘Not accurate’ The Arena Group said the articles were produced by a third party group AdVon Commerce. It has insisted Futurism’s report is ‘not accurate’. “The articles in question were product reviews and were licensed content from an external, third-party company, AdVon Commerce. A number of AdVon’s e-commerce articles ran on certain Arena websites,” a spokesperson for Arena Group was quoted as saying. “We continually monitor our partners and were in the midst of a review when these allegations were raised. AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans,” it added. The representative further mentioned, “According to AdVon, their writers, editors, and researchers create and curate content and follow a policy that involves using both counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software on all content. [caption id=“attachment_13446612” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Sports Illustrated has insisted that the report is ‘not accurate’ and said the articles were produced by a third party group – though the bios have since been deleted. AP[/caption] “Arena Group discovered that AdVon used pen names for some writers in certain articles to protect their privacy, which is not something we approve of. As a result, we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership,” the company said_._ But The New York Times reported that AdVon advertises itself as a firm deeply involved in AI. AdVon’s LinkedIn page states that it develops machine learning and artificial intelligence for e-commerce.

But not everyone is buying this answer.

CNN quoted the Sports Illustrated Union as saying it was ‘horrified’ by the claims. “If true, these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism,” the union said. “We deplore being associated with something so disrespectful to our readers.” “Along with basic principles of honesty, trust, journalistic ethics, etc. — I take seriously the weight of a Sports Illustrated byline,” Emma Baccellieri, a staff writer for the magazine, wrote on X. “It meant something to me long before I ever dreamed of working here. This report was horrifying to read.” “The practices described in the story published today do real damage to the credibility of the hardworking humans I have been honoured to work with for the past 9 years,” added writer and editor Mitch Goldich. Futurism says it stands by its report. It issued a statement to CBS MoneyWatch saying, “Arena’s response is just so bizarre, as everybody’s been pointing out online.” “The idea that people writing product reviews for volleyballs would need to protect their identities with pseudonyms is obviously absurd. And as for AdVon telling Sports Illustrated that all its articles are written by humans? Its employees disagree, and we’ve got a new story coming out about that soon.”

Critics say this is just the latest nadir in SI’s once illustrious reputation.

“If you look at the magazine’s history, there’s just been a series of bad editorial decisions,” journalist Michael MacCambridge told The New York Times. AI ethicist Benjamin Lange told CBS MoneyWatch, “Journalistic ethics requires adherence to basic principles of honesty, trust, accuracy and objectivity. The research group head at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich added that the “lack of robust ethical guardrails” while using AI need to be considered carefully. Sports Illustrated isn’t the only outlet that faced outrage. As per Business Insider, newspaper publisher Gannett halted its AI-generated sports articles in August after being roundly mocked on social media. One of its reports described a college football game as a “close encounter of the athletic kind.” With inputs from agencies