The parent company of Sports Illustrated is denying accusations of publishing articles attributed to fake author profiles and AI-generated photos.
The company claims that the articles in question were product reviews licensed from a third-party company, AdVon Commerce.
According to the company, the articles were written and edited by humans, but a pseudonym was used in certain articles. (Trending: Donald Trump Confronts Bud Light CEO.)
The Arena Group announced the use of AI in some of its content earlier this year, stating that it allowed the creation of new content based on information collected from archived stories.
“There’s a lot,” one source told the outlet of the fake authors. “I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist.”
“The content is absolutely AI-generated,” the source told Futurism, “no matter how much they say that it’s not.”
The Arena Group, Sports Illustrated’s parent company, said, “We, the workers of the SI Union, are horrified by a story on the site Futurism, reporting that Sports Illustrated’s parent company, The Arena Group, has published Al-generated content under SI’s brand with fabricated bylines and writer profiles. If true, these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism.”
“We deplore being associated with something so disrespectful to our readers.”
“We want to be very clear: What is described in this Futurism story does not represent the hardworking journalists who make up the SI Union,” the statement continued. “For nearly 70 years, Sl staff members have held themselves to the highest possible ethical standards. As members of the SI Union, we are proud to be part of that legacy and work every day to protect it. We expect management to do the same.”
“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.”
“It’s not going to replace the art of creating content,” Ross Levinsohn, Arena Group’s chairman and chief executive, reportedly said at the time. “It’s giving the content creators, whether they’re writers or social creators, real efficiency and real access to the archives we have.”
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