Sports Illustrateds Parent Says Articles by Allegedly Fake Writers With AI-Generated Photos

May 2024 · 5 minute read

After Sports Illustrated was called out for publishing articles from apparently nonexistent authors with AI-generated headshots, the company that operates SI said the content in question came from a third party that had provided assurances those were written by humans.

The Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated, said it has ended its partnership with AdVon Commerce, the company that supplied the posts. Reps for AdVon Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.

Arena Group’s statement came after a piece published Monday by Futurism provided evidence that the photos of several authors listed on Sports Illustrated’s website were available for purchase on a website that sells AI-generated headshots. For example, the bio of a writer on SI’s site named “Drew Ortiz” said that “Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn’t out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents’ farm.” The photo of “Drew Ortiz” as it appeared on the Sports Illustrated site was available on an AI-generated image website with the description “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes,” per the Futurism report. According to the Futurism piece, after it contacted Arena Group for comment, the bios of the fake writers disappeared. Articles with the allegedly AI-generated writers’ bylines now include a disclaimer that reads, “This content is created by a 3rd party” and “The Sports Illustrated editorial staff are not involved in the creation of this content.”

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A spokesperson for Arena Group said in a statement to Variety, “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.”

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The Arena Group rep continued, “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.”

In 2019, Authentic Brands Group purchased Sports Illustrated from Meredith for $110 million (before Meredith was acquired by IAC’s Dotdash). ABG then licensed media and publishing rights for the SI brand to Maven, which changed its name in 2021 to Arena Group Holdings. New York-based Arena Group says it operates more than 265 brands, including Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal and HubPages.

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