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Sports Illustrated Just Got Caught Using Fake AI Writers
People are not happy about this
AI-Generated Sports Illustrated Writer
This week, Maggie Harrison published a story about Sports Illustrated’s secret use of fake writers and AI-generated content. As you can imagine, the reaction to the bombshell news was huge.
It marks an important moment for using AI in publishing, and it certainly upset the real human writers who have worked at Sports Illustrated for many years.
"Drew has spent much of his life outdoors and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature. Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm."
That’s the bio for a writer named Drew Ortiz on Sports Illustrated’s website. Nothing on his profile suggests that he is anything but a real-life human. But Maggie decided to take a closer look at Drew’s digital footprint. What they found was intriguing.
Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz does not exist.
He has no social media.
He has no publishing history.
But here’s the shocking moment. When Maggie looked up the image of Drew, she found his profile photo was for sale on a website that sells AI-generated fake headshots.
So Maggie looked closer at the other writer’s profiles on Sports Illustrated’s website. She found more fake profiles for non-existent writers. Maggie managed to speak to someone involved with the creation of the fake content, who remained anonymous but said:
"There's a lot. 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."
As for the content, many of the articles shared by the fake profiles read as though they were AI-generated. Though it’s impossible to tell for sure, it is a little bit odd that Drew once wrote that volleyball “can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual volleyball to practice with.” Though to be fair, that remark is about as good as all of our first drafts here at Subscribe to AI.
When Maggie and her team reached out to the magazine’s publisher with questions, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from Sports Illustrated’s site without explanation.
They never replied to Maggie’s questions.
But — once the bombshell story was published, the magazine’s publisher finally decided the situation was worthy of a public statement.
Today, an article was published alleging that Sports Illustrated published AI-generated articles. According to our initial investigation, this 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. 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. 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. However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy — actions we don't condone — and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership.
Maggie’s sources connected to the story disagree with the statement’s suggestion that the content was not AI-generated.
Anyways! The backlash was significant, with people publicly sharing their upset on social media. Even real Sports Illustrated writers shared their opinions.
Sports Illustrated has a union that swiftly reacted: “If true, these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism.” Adding, “We deplore being associated with something disrespectful to our readers.”
Writer Emma Baccellieri shared the union’s statement and added to it with her experience: “Along with basic principles of honesty, trust, journalistic ethics, etc. -- I take seriously the weight of a Sports Illustrated byline. It meant something to me long before I ever dreamed of working here. This report was horrifying to read.”
We can all relate to that uncanny valley knee-jerk reaction to finding out someone isn’t an actual human. It feels very much like a dramatic twist in a film. But this revelation that Sports Illustrated was secretly using fake AI writers is already impacting how their very real human staff can complete their jobs.
College football journalist Richard Johnson shared this story: “I called a source earlier who answered the phone by asking if they were speaking to the real Richard Johnson or the AI version.”
Johnson added that the use of AI-generated writers is “antithetical to everything [Sports Illustrated] should stand for and it is deeply embarrassing.”
Researching this story, the whole thing feels so inevitable.
We’ve all spoken to a random customer support person in an online chat window and wondered if the person we’re talking to even exists. Heck, we’ve sometimes reverse Google searched customer support staff profile pics and found them on stock photo websites.
AI will be used more and more often as it gets better and cheaper.
Hopefully, we’ll always get upset when brands try to pass AI-generated work off as the work of an actual human.
That being said, while legacy media will find it nearly impossible to add AI content to their business without facing backlash, there’s undoubtedly an opportunity for new media publications to embrace AI in a public-facing way. Is now a good time to tell you that this article was written by Drew Ortiz? (kidding).
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