Talk about taking “fake news” to a new level, now there are fake authors “writing” computer-generated articles for reputable entities.
Futurism is reporting that Sports Illustrated has used artificial intelligence to generate content for its website.
To make matters worse, SI attributed the work to AI-generated authors with false bios whose AI-generated headshots were bought online.
This is the bio for Sora Tanaka, one of the fake AI-generated writers for Sports Illustrated.
If you read her bio, it’s quite clear it was written by AI, too, because no human talks like this.
This was so brazen and shameless. pic.twitter.com/0Rj6WOBoip
— Mike Beauvais (@MikeBeauvais) November 27, 2023
The AI bios sound generic and fake.
For those who believe that AI writing is perfect, Futurism perused articles generated by AI and found clumsy language.
An article written by bogus author Drew Ortiz describes volleyball in the following way:
“[It] can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.”
When confronted by Futurism, SI deleted all of the AI content.
Sports Illustrated has been publishing stories written by AI — and attributing them to writers that don’t exist.
Profiles for fake authors used AI-generated headshots and made-up bios.
When asked about it, all content was deleted.
(h/t @futurism) pic.twitter.com/8PAMzk9h0q
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) November 27, 2023
As expected, there were reactions to this from sports media professionals.
WHAT IS GOING ON SPORTS ILLUSTRATED#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/w6dKkVzUW6
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 27, 2023
Pat McAfee shared a few more expletives than usual when he discussed the story on Monday’s episode of his show.
The Sports Illustrated Union of “human employees” issued a statement expressing outrage and demanding answers from management.
Is this the future of sports writing or writing at large?
This could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Other entities may be doing the same thing.
Is it ethical or acceptable?
Perhaps, but it should be approached with an honesty that SI did not use.
There are a lot of wrinkles to this story yet to be discovered so stay tuned.
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