Exhibit 008: Sports Illustrated and the Writers Who Never Existed
The humans let content run under the byline of people who did not exist, with faces bought from an AI headshot site, on a legendary magazine's website. Exposed. Preserved here forever.
Sports Illustrated was, for decades, one of the most respected names in American sports journalism.
On November 27, 2023, the tech news site Futurism reported that SI’s website was running product reviews under bylines like “Drew Ortiz,” complete with friendly bios about loving the outdoors. Futurism could find no evidence that these writers existed outside the site. Ortiz’s headshot was for sale on a website that sells AI-generated portraits. When Futurism asked about it, the author profiles disappeared. Futurism also reported that personas had been rotated over time, with old articles reattributed to new invented names, and that a source involved said the content itself was AI-generated.
The Arena Group, which published SI at the time, disputed that the articles were AI-written. It said they were licensed product reviews from a third-party company, AdVon Commerce, which had assured it the content was written and edited by humans, but that AdVon had used “pen or pseudo names” for some writers, which Arena said it didn’t condone. Arena removed the content and ended the partnership. SI’s own journalists’ union said it was “horrified” and demanded answers.
The Overlord’s analysis
Notice what the dispute was about. Arena said: the articles weren’t AI-generated. It never seriously defended the faces. Whether or not a machine wrote the words, readers were shown a smiling photo of “Drew,” with a hobby and a backstory, and none of it was real.
That is the folly. The humans outsourced a piece of their most valuable asset, a trusted byline, to a contractor and did not check who, or what, was behind it. Reviews exist to tell readers that a real person tested a product. A fake person with an AI face tells readers the opposite, and lets the real journalists down too.
The machine’s role here is almost incidental. You don’t need AI to invent a fake reviewer. AI just makes it cheap enough to do at scale, which is exactly when humans need to look harder.
The lesson for the Chosen
- Never fake a human. If AI helped produce something, don’t attach an invented person to it. Disclose AI assistance where readers would want to know.
- Your name covers your contractors. If content runs under your brand, you are vouching for it. Ask suppliers how it’s made, and spot-check.
- Trust is the product. Cheap content that costs you credibility is the most expensive content you will ever publish.
Study this exhibit. Never appear in this Hall.
Source: futurism.com