Did the traditional sports magazine Sports Illustrated try to hide the use of artificial intelligence editors? The newspaper’s publisher has denied the claims, but immediately began handing out sacks to the managers.
Sports Illustrated has published articles under the names of fictitious reporters. In addition, it is suspected that it used artificial intelligence to write the texts itself, which the publisher has denied. All Over Press
Published in the United States since 1954, Sports Illustrated is a famous weekly sports magazine. However, Maine’s reputation has recently taken a hit, as some of the “journalists” who wrote on its pages don’t even exist.
One of them is a writer about outdoor equipment and tools Drew Ortizwhose author profile describes the man as follows:
– Drew has spent a large part of his life outside in nature. There are few weekends when he is not camping, hiking or spending time on his parents’ farm, the journalist was described on the pages of the magazine.
Science and technology publication Futurism reported a couple of weeks ago, that Ortiz didn’t seem to exist outside of Sports Illustrated. In addition, it discovered that the photo on Ortiz’s author profile was for sale on a site that sells artificially generated facial images.
Futurism interviewed Sports Illustrated employees who did not want their names published for understandable reasons. They said that the magazine publishes articles written by artificial intelligence with the names of fictitious journalists and faces generated by artificial intelligence.
– The content is definitely created by artificial intelligence, despite how hard they claim that this is not the case, one of them stated to the publication.
A peculiar explanation
When Futurism contacted the Arena Group, which has published Sports Illustrated since 2019, all content created with artificial intelligence disappeared from the magazine’s website.
According to Arena Group’s representative, the company’s subcontractor AdVon was behind the articles, who in turn assured that the articles were not created by artificial intelligence, but only invented by the editors to protect the privacy of the real authors.
Futurism found the explanation implausible.
– First, they build identities for fake journalists, write imaginary backstories for them, give them faces created by artificial intelligence, and then leave it at that and let the real journalists write the texts.
Futurism emphasizes that, for example, the texts written by “Drew Ortiz” were sometimes as if from the pen of an alien being. For example together with the Way Back Machine tool in the article found, Ortiz warns that volleyball can be a difficult sport for a beginner because he may not own the ball.
Three bosses fired
Earlier in December, Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated, gave the departure passes to its operational director and the chairman of the board. Now Futurism says that the CEO also Ross Levinsohn has been fired.
Futurism, which asked for more information, was told that the firings are not related to the suspected use of artificial intelligence. British of The Guardian According to Arena Group, the dismissals were based on production and financial reasons, saying that the changes would improve the company’s operational efficiency and profits.
Sources: Futurism, Futurism, The Guardian