Despite Sports Illustrated’s reputation as one of the world’s premier athletic publications, recent controversies surrounding the use of artificial intelligence in its journalism haven’t been all fun and games.
On Monday, Sports Illustrated announced it would be removing a variety of articles that had been published on its website using fake writer names and artificially-generated author images, which were purportedly created by third-party company AdVon Commerce.
“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,” said a Sports Illustrated spokesperson.
As the effects of growing artificial intelligence continue to leak into the world of journalism, it remains to be seen if other major publications will drop the ball on conducting due diligence on its articles like Sports Illustrated did.
