Sports Illustrated publisher denies posting AI-generated stories after author photos are found for sale on AI sites

Sports Illustrated was accused of publishing articles by "fake, AI-generated writers" whose profile images were found for sale on a website that sells AI-generated profiles and photos.

Futurism pointed to two in particular allegedly from Sports Illustrated. The first was a man purported to be Drew Ortiz.

"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," the writer's profile reportedly read. "Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn't out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents' farm."

However, the very same photo was allegedly found by the outlet for sale on an AI face generator website.

This was also true for Sora Tanaka, whose Sports Illustrated profile allegedly said she "has always been a fitness guru, and loves to try different foods and drinks."

Tanaka's photo was also reportedly found for sale on the same website.

Futurism spoke to two people purported to be involved with the creation of content at Sports Illustrated; both remained anonymous.

"There's a lot," one said about 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," the alleged employee added.

A second person said it's not only photos that are generated by artificial intelligence; articles have been as well.

"The content is absolutely AI-generated," the second source said, "no matter how much they say that it's not."

The outlet pointed to an Ortiz-written article that reportedly warned that volleyball "can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with."

Sports Illustrated's publisher, the Arena Group, provided a statement alleging that a third-party contractor was to blame for any discrepancies.

"An article was published alleging that Sports Illustrated published AI-generated articles. According to our initial investigation, this is not accurate," the statement began. "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."

The company then claimed that although it takes steps to "continually monitor" its partners, the company was "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. 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."

Futurism also alleged that the AI-generated authors disappeared from Sports Illustrated's website without explanation. The outlet also claimed that other websites operated by the Arena Group, such as the Street, routinely rotate in new AI-generated authors.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!