Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers (1 Viewer)

[NewlyRetired]

Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers

Sports Illustrated was publishing articles under seemingly fake bylines. We asked their owner about it — and they deleted everything.

futurism.com

 

[Leroy Hoard]

When I was young (sounds like a song title) Sports Illustrated was pretty close to a bible. Very sad if this is where they are at now.

 

[NewlyRetired]

It is hard enough for young writers to find paying jobs with every one trained to read online for free, but even saying that using AI generated writers just seems really wrong.

 

[Pip's Invitation]

When I was young (sounds like a song title) Sports Illustrated was pretty close to a bible. Very sad if this is where they are at now.

This is where they have been for almost a decade now. They ended up in private equity ownership hell, and this kind of cost-cutting is the kind of thing that happens there.

My company (a medical publisher) adopted a policy that we will not publish AI-generated articles. You can see why we need such a policy.

 

[3C's]

Read an article somewhere the other day and at the bottom it stated that it was AI generated and "fine tuned" by a person. Or something like that.

 

[Ilov80s]

It isn't just AI generated text that is starting to bleed over into search results.

The main image if you do a Google search for Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwoʻole (whose version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow you have probably hear) is a Midjourney creation right from Reddit.

https://x.com/emollick/status/1728936758157414670?s=46&t=RJfiYufOPM5611362cLZGg

 

[GroveDiesel]

Pretty sure ESPN has been doing it on their website for game recaps for a while now. They’re often extremely generic and poorly done.

 

[Ilov80s]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

 

[ChiefD]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

I don't believe you.

 

[belljr]

Pretty sure ESPN has been doing it on their website for game recaps for a while now. They’re often extremely generic and poorly done.

For anyone that has kids sports and uses gamechanger the "game recaps" are pretty hilarious.

Our state website for high school sports has doing recaps like this for years.

 

[Tick]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

I'm not sure it will take that long.

 

[Runkle]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

We're already there in some ways. It's actually becoming difficult to train some AI models because there's so much AI-generated crap out there, the new models can't tell what isn't human and is picking up bad writing, then pushing it back out again into the corpus, in a feedback loop.

 

[Ilov80s]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

We're already there in some ways. It's actually becoming difficult to train some AI models because there's so much AI-generated crap out there, the new models can't tell what isn't human and is picking up bad writing, then pushing it back out again into the corpus, in a feedback loop.

I've heard the same for images.

 

[Runkle]

It is hard enough for young writers to find paying jobs with every one trained to read online for free, but even saying that using AI generated writers just seems really wrong.

I think it's probably difficult to find human writers for what they can likely afford to pay, given how little money they probably make from online articles. Even a young writer can't survive on pennies a word for the occasional blurb.

 

[Leroy Hoard]

Anyone who has a league on MFL has probably noticed the awful "fantasy previews" where they clumsily interject your name into lame generic coach speak. Not sure if that qualifies, but I refuse to think a functioning human is behind that stuff.

 

[Raging weasel]

Anyone who has a league on MFL has probably noticed the awful "fantasy previews" where they clumsily interject your name into lame generic coach speak. Not sure if that qualifies, but I refuse to think a functioning human is behind that stuff.

I would hope not, those are awful

 

[FatMax]

Anyone who has a league on MFL has probably noticed the awful "fantasy previews" where they clumsily interject your name into lame generic coach speak. Not sure if that qualifies, but I refuse to think a functioning human is behind that stuff.

They've been doing that for a decade or more. It's just a template

 

[shuke]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

We're already there in some ways. It's actually becoming difficult to train some AI models because there's so much AI-generated crap out there, the new models can't tell what isn't human and is picking up bad writing, then pushing it back out again into the corpus, in a feedback loop.

This is awesome.

 

[mr. furley]

pretty sure the local news websites are 90% AI articles. it's horrible. sentences that almost make sense... especially when writing emotive words. they "fit" in the way that a kid learning language would use them.


wife's family has long had a tradition of buying a paper on Thanksgiving day to look at ads, which they use to share ideas for Christmas presents.

paper on that day used to be 4-5" thick. a lot of it ads, but a lot of articles of local interest. national stories from local writers. a business section, sports section, local section, national section.. even pages for local religious news.

picked a paper up on Thanksgiving this year. the sports section was 4 pages, front & back. 2 sheets of paper. one of those pages was the comics. there were 2 stories about the Packers and stats from local high school games. the rest was ads. that was it. that was the entirety of the 4 pages.

the other section was local and national news. 3 pages of terribly "written" articles + the obits and 1 full page of car sales ads.

we aren't a huge city or anything, but used to have 2 local papers plus 2 Milwaukee papers. now we have 1 and it's absolute trash.

 

[fatness]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

It's here now ---- badly-composed AI articles on many major news sites. Quality reporting is getting trashed, even in reviews of Mama Cass's Herbal Medicinal Cleanse And Sandwich.

 

[FairWarning]

pretty sure the local news websites are 90% AI articles. it's horrible. sentences that almost make sense... especially when writing emotive words. they "fit" in the way that a kid learning language would use them.


wife's family has long had a tradition of buying a paper on Thanksgiving day to look at ads, which they use to share ideas for Christmas presents.

paper on that day used to be 4-5" thick. a lot of it ads, but a lot of articles of local interest. national stories from local writers. a business section, sports section, local section, national section.. even pages for local religious news.

picked a paper up on Thanksgiving this year. the sports section was 4 pages, front & back. 2 sheets of paper. one of those pages was the comics. there were 2 stories about the Packers and stats from local high school games. the rest was ads. that was it. that was the entirety of the 4 pages.

the other section was local and national news. 3 pages of terribly "written" articles + the obits and 1 full page of car sales ads.

we aren't a huge city or anything, but used to have 2 local papers plus 2 Milwaukee papers. now we have 1 and it's absolute trash.

Unfortunately the big city papers are like that now.

 

[Boston]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

Same with Newsweek, Time, and other has-been institutions. Those magazines still exist in zombie form, but none has been in any way relevant for 20+ years.

Magazines that do long-form writing might be able to survive for a while, but the internet was always destined to kill off weekly magazines.

 

[Boston]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

Same with Newsweek, Time, and other has-been institutions. Those magazines still exist in zombie form, but none has been in any way relevant for 20+ years.

Magazines that do long-form writing might be able to survive for a while, but the internet was always destined to kill off weekly magazines.

Yup...the big 3 back in the day were SI, Time and Newsweek...they were just staples of American culture and carried a ton of clout...while the internet was the final nails all three lost their way prior to that and hurt themselves unnecessarily.

 

[Snoopy]

If they AI the swimsuit issue?

 

[GroveDiesel]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

Same with Newsweek, Time, and other has-been institutions. Those magazines still exist in zombie form, but none has been in any way relevant for 20+ years.

Magazines that do long-form writing might be able to survive for a while, but the internet was always destined to kill off weekly magazines.

Yup...the big 3 back in the day were SI, Time and Newsweek...they were just staples of American culture and carried a ton of clout...while the internet was the final nails all three lost their way prior to that and hurt themselves unnecessarily.

Nobody reads any type of magazines anymore. What they were writing had nothing to do with why became irrelevant. If they were writing the most red-blooded American sports focused articles possible they still would have failed just like every other magazine in existence.

With the growth of the internet, everybody had all the sports information they wanted instantly available all the time. By the time magazines came out with an issue, everything they wrote about was old news.

 

[Boston]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

Same with Newsweek, Time, and other has-been institutions. Those magazines still exist in zombie form, but none has been in any way relevant for 20+ years.

Magazines that do long-form writing might be able to survive for a while, but the internet was always destined to kill off weekly magazines.

Yup...the big 3 back in the day were SI, Time and Newsweek...they were just staples of American culture and carried a ton of clout...while the internet was the final nails all three lost their way prior to that and hurt themselves unnecessarily.

Nobody reads any type of magazines anymore. What they were writing had nothing to do with why became irrelevant. If they were writing the most red-blooded American sports focused articles possible they still would have failed just like every other magazine in existence.

With the growth of the internet, everybody had all the sports information they wanted instantly available all the time. By the time magazines came out with an issue, everything they wrote about was old news.

Sorry you miss the point...post-internet you are correct (yes, water is wet), but their demise was happening before...there was life before the internet.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

If they AI the swimsuit issue?

They already ruined the swimsuit issue all by themselves. They didn't need AI for that.

Although I assume the internet also killed off "lad mags," right? So the swimsuit issue was probably on borrowed time anyway, even before they turned into a hate letter to normal guys.

 

[GroveDiesel]

If you aren't old enough it is hard to explain just how important SI was to the sports-world back in the day...being on the cover was such a big deal and you couldn't wait till the mail came on Thursdays (at least where I lived)...was so sad to watch the demise...it went from actual sports to every article being some type of Manhattan-elite human-interest story that should have been in the New Yorker rather than what SI used to be...now it is irrelevant and no one cares about it.

Same with Newsweek, Time, and other has-been institutions. Those magazines still exist in zombie form, but none has been in any way relevant for 20+ years.

Magazines that do long-form writing might be able to survive for a while, but the internet was always destined to kill off weekly magazines.

Yup...the big 3 back in the day were SI, Time and Newsweek...they were just staples of American culture and carried a ton of clout...while the internet was the final nails all three lost their way prior to that and hurt themselves unnecessarily.

Nobody reads any type of magazines anymore. What they were writing had nothing to do with why became irrelevant. If they were writing the most red-blooded American sports focused articles possible they still would have failed just like every other magazine in existence.

With the growth of the internet, everybody had all the sports information they wanted instantly available all the time. By the time magazines came out with an issue, everything they wrote about was old news.

Sorry you miss the point...post-internet you are correct (yes, water is wet), but their demise was happening before...there was life before the internet.

Do you have the subscription/circulation data showing that decline before the internet? Because that’s not really how I remember it, but if there’s the data showing otherwise, I’m certainly open to that possibility.

 

[Gr00vus]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

We're already there in some ways. It's actually becoming difficult to train some AI models because there's so much AI-generated crap out there, the new models can't tell what isn't human and is picking up bad writing, then pushing it back out again into the corpus, in a feedback loop.

I've heard the same for images.

With the ability to LLM generate images, seamlessly edit images/audio/video, etc. we're back to a place we were in before we had audio/video media, where you can only really believe things you see/hear in your immediate presence.

 

[Softballguy]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

I wouldn't assume AI will make it worse.

 

[Ilov80s]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

I wouldn't assume AI will make it worse.

ok so what is your take here? It’s going to fix itself? Seems problematic that a Google search for a real person has the top result as a fake image.

 

[Joe Bryant]

It's a worry for the industry for sure.

A big loser is the consumer when the quantity of average to below average content just explodes making good content that much more difficult to find.

 

[Gr00vus]

It's a worry for the industry for sure.

A big loser is the consumer when the quantity of average to below average content just explodes making good content that much more difficult to find.

Definitely. But, this also will present opportunities for those who can create good content (as long as they can figure out how to make it visible above all the noise).

 

[massraider]

ok so what is your take here? It’s going to fix itself? Seems problematic that a Google search for a real person has the top result as a fake image.

Search is already broken, and has been broken.

The AI writing thing completely sucks, but it's mainly going to be content farms. Who the heck is going to Sports Illustrated every day, and reading their 'articles' before this story broke? No one I have ever heard of. SI before AI was FanSided, pretty much. Content getting cranked out, and being judged on eyeballs, which was being gamed by the writers to know what to input in their article.

Whatever you are scared of with AI writing, it's here. It's happening already. You cannot search Most Reliable Coffee Machines, because whatever results you find are SEO and ad-drenched clickbait referral sites. Here's our 12 best coffee machines, and a link to buy them. Someone doesn't want to give us a referral fee, guess what? Not on our list of best coffee makers. This is why 'Reddit' is such a popular suffix on Google searches. Because people know they cannot trust the top results.

Does it matter if a human wrote the copy on an article you cannot trust?

This is the cost of unlimited free content, you need to be vigilant.

 

[QuizGuy66]

No amount of AI can replicate Peter King's hatred of the Bengals.

-QG

 

[Long Ball Larry]

If they AI the swimsuit issue?

that's basically half of instagram it seems like.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

I find this thread relatively interesting, so I commend whoever trained all of you AI bots.

 

[Gr00vus]

I find this thread relatively interesting, so I commend whoever trained all of you AI bots.

Thank you for the nice comment Long Ball Larry, it's really great to hear from you. You also post quality content.

 

[Joe Bryant]

Not really content but one area this will affect in marketing is rendering customer testimonials mostly useless. Which is a bummer as we have a ton of legit great testimonials. But now every product can have zillions of legit-sounding AI testimonials or "product reviews". That's already a thing with human-powered semi-legit testimonials. But now at scale it'll be even worse.

 

[STEADYMOBBIN 22]

ok so what is your take here? It’s going to fix itself? Seems problematic that a Google search for a real person has the top result as a fake image.

Search is already broken, and has been broken.

The AI writing thing completely sucks, but it's mainly going to be content farms. Who the heck is going to Sports Illustrated every day, and reading their 'articles' before this story broke? No one I have ever heard of. SI before AI was FanSided, pretty much. Content getting cranked out, and being judged on eyeballs, which was being gamed by the writers to know what to input in their article.

Whatever you are scared of with AI writing, it's here. It's happening already. You cannot search Most Reliable Coffee Machines, because whatever results you find are SEO and ad-drenched clickbait referral sites. Here's our 12 best coffee machines, and a link to buy them. Someone doesn't want to give us a referral fee, guess what? Not on our list of best coffee makers. This is why 'Reddit' is such a popular suffix on Google searches. Because people know they cannot trust the top results.

Does it matter if a human wrote the copy on an article you cannot trust?

This is the cost of unlimited free content, you need to be vigilant.

I HATE Reddit but it’s now my go to for any product review or advice. (Besides here of course!)

I was looking for a new water heater. No help on google but got everything I needed to know from actual plumbers on Reddit.

 

[jwb]

I'm a copywriter. I also write over at inc.com. This is definitely a thing. I'm 57, and my retirement plan included "work as much as I want as long as I want". Not anymore. I'll be able to hang on for a few years, but the future of this industry is definitely bleak.

 

[dgreen]

Not really content but one area this will affect in marketing is rendering customer testimonials mostly useless. Which is a bummer as we have a ton of legit great testimonials. But now every product can have zillions of legit-sounding AI testimonials or "product reviews". That's already a thing with human-powered semi-legit testimonials. But now at scale it'll be even worse.

Is that legal? Would that fall under false advertising?

 

[Jayrod]

I'm a copywriter. I also write over at inc.com. This is definitely a thing. I'm 57, and my retirement plan included "work as much as I want as long as I want". Not anymore. I'll be able to hang on for a few years, but the future of this industry is definitely bleak.

Ugh, sorry to hear it.

I didn't see it coming that AI would ruin the writing industry. I honestly thought the financial and medical fields would be the first to be revolutionized. They probably have too much money involved to truly get turned upside down like they should be.

 

[jwb]

I'm a copywriter. I also write over at inc.com. This is definitely a thing. I'm 57, and my retirement plan included "work as much as I want as long as I want". Not anymore. I'll be able to hang on for a few years, but the future of this industry is definitely bleak.

Ugh, sorry to hear it.

I didn't see it coming that AI would ruin the writing industry. I honestly thought the financial and medical fields would be the first to be revolutionized. They probably have too much money involved to truly get turned upside down like they should be.

I'm with you that I did not see writing being the first one.

It's definitely coming for all the others though, and it'll happen soon. If you sit at a desk and have more than decade left to work, your career twilight may not be what you thought it would be.

 

[Desert_Power]

If they AI the swimsuit issue?

AI can't replicate Livvy

 

[Desert_Power]

We are probably a couple years away from ruining the internet with so much AI that it will be nearly impossible to trust anything you search.

Maybe. Search is already a mess though. I find myself asking ChatGPT how to do things more often because Google just wants to bomb with with links to Youtube videos or useless SEO'd sites.

 

[Terminalxylem]

No amount of AI can replicate Peter King's hatred of the Bengals.

-QG

Oh, where do I even begin with the Cincinnati Bengals? I mean, honestly, watching them play is like subjecting yourself to a torturous experiment in sleep deprivation. It's like they're on a mission to redefine mediocrity, and let me tell you, they're succeeding with flying colors – the colors of a team that consistently disappoints.

Let's start with their quarterback situation. Joe Burrow, the supposed savior, the chosen one, the guy they drafted to turn the franchise around. Well, he's about as effective as a screen door on a submarine. Sure, he had a good college career, but this is the NFL, and he's playing like he's still in the NCAA. I've seen more accuracy from a blindfolded toddler playing pin the tail on the donkey.

And don't get me started on the offensive line. It's like they're auditioning for a comedy show, with each member taking turns letting defenders breeze past them like they're statues in a museum. I've seen better protection from a wet paper bag. Burrow spends more time on his back than a beach bum on vacation.

The defense? Please. It's like they're allergic to tackling. I've seen more missed tackles than a kindergarten soccer game. Opposing offenses must think they've hit the jackpot when they see the Bengals on the schedule. It's a buffet of yards and points for anyone facing this sorry excuse for a defense.

And let's not forget the coaching staff. Zac Taylor is about as inspiring as a bowl of lukewarm oatmeal. I've seen more passion from a sloth on sedatives. It's like he's playing a game of chess where every move is a pawn sacrifice. The only strategy I see is the strategy to lose, week in and week out.

But hey, at least the Bengals have a loyal fan base. It's a shame they have to endure this perpetual circus of incompetence. It's like the football gods are punishing them for some unknown sin committed in a past life. I wouldn't wish being a Bengals fan on my worst enemy.

So there you have it, the Cincinnati Bengals, a team that manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on a regular basis. It's like they're the living embodiment of Murphy's Law – anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I wouldn't wish being a Bengals fan on my worst enemy. Did I mention that already? Well, it bears repeating.

 

[QuizGuy66]

AI doesn't know to take a veiled (or not veiled) shot at Mike Brown so my point stands


-QG

 

[Joe Bryant]

Not really content but one area this will affect in marketing is rendering customer testimonials mostly useless. Which is a bummer as we have a ton of legit great testimonials. But now every product can have zillions of legit-sounding AI testimonials or "product reviews". That's already a thing with human-powered semi-legit testimonials. But now at scale it'll be even worse.

Is that legal? Would that fall under false advertising?

Probably not but nobody enforces it.