William Faulkner. John Updike. Drew Ortiz. All of these have been credited authors at Sports Illustrated. One of them is apparently an AI-generated writer.

According to Futurism (Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers, written by Maggie Harrison and available here), there was nothing in Drew Ortiz’s author biography at SI to suggest that he was anything other than human.

“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,” it read. “Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn’t out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents’ farm.”

The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn’t seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he’s described as “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes.”

Ortiz isn’t the only AI-generated author published by Sports Illustrated, according to a person involved with the creation of the content who asked to be kept anonymous to protect them from professional repercussions.

“There’s a lot,” they told us of the 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,” they continued. “It’s just crazy.”

The AI authors’ writing often sounds like it was written by…AI. One Ortiz article, written over a year ago, warns that volleyball “can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.”

Gee, you think? 😮

And in “his” write-up of one ball, “he” says: “While the ball is sold deflated (for obvious reasons), you’ll be playing with the ball in no time after you pump air into it.”

Thanks for the tip, “Drew”! 😀

After Futurism reached out with questions to the magazine’s publisher, The Arena Group, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from SI’s site without explanation. The links to the author biography and Ortiz article above came from the Wayback Machine.

Ortiz’s profile page was redirected to that of a “Sora Tanaka“ whose profile picture is also for sale on the same AI headshot marketplace as Ortiz, where she’s listed as “joyful asian young-adult female with long brown hair and brown eyes.” Yeesh.

As the author goes on to discuss, the same thing has been happening at TheStreet, which The Arena Group bought in 2019. Authors with profile photos traceable to that same AI face website. As the author notes, these fake writers are periodically wiped from existence and their articles reattributed to new names, with no disclosure about the use of AI.

And The Arena Group isn’t alone in its attempts to turn to AI for its content. The article notes this:

“We caught CNET and Bankrate, both owned by Red Ventures, publishing barely-disclosed AI content that was filled with factual mistakes and even plagiarism; in the ensuing storm of criticism, CNET issued corrections to more than half its AI-generated articles. G/O Media also published AI-generated material on its portfolio of sites, resulting in embarrassing bungles at Gizmodo and The A.V. Club. We caught BuzzFeed publishing slapdash AI-generated travel guides. And USA Today and other Gannett newspapers were busted publishing hilariously garbled AI-generated sports roundups that one of the company’s own sports journalists described as “embarrassing,” saying they ‘shouldn’t ever’ have been published.”

All this according to the Futurism author, who I assume is a real person. 😉 These days, who knows anymore? Or cares? If the goal is to check all the SEO boxes to “churn out monetizable content”, it doesn’t seem that quality is of content is important to some very well known publications.

What’s next for Sports Illustrated? AI-generated swimsuit editions? Just kidding…I think.

So, what do you think? Are you surprised how many publications seem to be using AI-generated content? Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

Image (and link to it) via Futurism.

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