The profile picture of a newspaper “editor” was found on a website that sells facial images created by artificial intelligence.
Sports Illustrated, one of the most famous sports magazines in the United States, has found itself in the middle of an uproar after it was revealed that some of the magazine’s stories are produced by artificial intelligence. In addition, among the authors of the stories there are journalists who do not really exist.
A specialist in science and technology issues writes about it Futurism.
For example, a journalist who wrote for the magazine under the name Drew Ortiz has no publication history outside of the magazine. Ortiz’s profile cannot be found on social media channels either. And what’s more special, the profile picture associated with the articles he made is discoverable from the website, which sells facial images created by artificial intelligence. In the context of the face photo, the “reporter” is described as “a neutral white male young adult with short brown hair and blue eyes.”
When Futurism contacted Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated, all the editors created by artificial intelligence disappeared from the website of Urheilulehti.
Later, Arena Group’s spokesperson rushed to publish a statement that some of the magazine’s articles are made by a partner named AdVon. From there, according to the publisher, he was assured that the articles were written by the right people. However, the publisher decided to end cooperation with AdVon, because that company allows its writers to use pseudonyms, which, according to the publisher, is not accepted at Sports Illustrated.
However, an unnamed source from Sports Illustrated said that the magazine also publishes articles made by artificial intelligence.
Sports Illustrated is by no means the only media outlet that has found itself in the middle of an uproar for using artificial intelligence in its content production. At the beginning of the year, it became apparent that Cnet, a website specializing in technology, used artificial intelligence in some of its financial news articles, reports AP. Their author team was named “Money Staff”. The reader found out that the artificial intelligence was behind the articles only by clicking on the “Money Stuff” item in question. CNET told its readers openly about its artificial intelligence experiment only at the point when other media picked up the topic.
Sports Illustrated, founded in 1954, is especially known for top models presenting swimwear and bikini fashion in cover photos. On the other hand, the magazine is also known for its famous authors. Stories for the magazine have been written by, among others, a Nobel Prize-winning prose writer William Faulkner and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike.