Sports Illustrated deleted web articles after a report claimed they were generated by artificial intelligence and published under fake author names.

Tech publisher Futurism reported the issue after finding author headshots on an AI-generated image website.

The Sports Illustrated Union said staff were “horrified” and demanded “basic journalistic standards”.

The publisher’s owner disputed the report’s accuracy, but it said it had launched an internal investigation.

Arena Group, which owns the Sports Illustrated magazine and website, licensed the content from a third-party company, Advon Commerce, a company spokesperson said in a statement.

Sports Illustrated has since removed the content after the allegations were raised, the statement added. Arena Group is now pursuing an internal investigation and has ended its partnership with Advon Commerce.

Advon Commerce, an e-commerce company that works with retailers and publishers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Sports Illustrated Union said “these practices violate everything we believe in about journalism”.

“We demand the company commit to adhering to basic journalistic standards, including not publishing computer-written stories by fake people,” the union said on X.

Arena Group claimed that Advon Commerce had assured them “that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans” and that the e-commerce firm regularly uses “counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software”.

The company alleged that AdVon Commerce had allowed its writers to use pseudonyms “in certain articles” to protect their privacy, however. That was why the AI-generated pictures were used and the author names cannot be found elsewhere on the internet.

This incident at Sports Illustrated comes as concern grows in the media world that generative artificial intelligence could cheaply replace journalists and potentially spread misinformation. Various newsrooms have experimented with AI or released guidelines for employees and audiences to explain their approach towards it.

Some newsrooms have made headlines, however, after publishing AI articles that included errors or falsehoods. Others gained attention for not marking stories as AI generated.

Numerous Sports Illustrated staff said on social media that they were appalled by the findings in Futurist’s report, particularly as Arena Group has made large cuts to staff in recent years.

Mitch Goldich, an editor at Sports Illustrated who leads the union, said the magazine had done “real damage to the credibility of the hardworking humans I have been honored to work with for the past 9 years”.

He changed his name on X to “Mitch Goldich (human)” to further emphasise the point.

Futurism said Tuesday that it stands by its report.

“Arena’s response is just so bizarre, as everybody’s been pointing out online,” the publication said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch. “The idea that people writing product reviews for volleyballs would need to protect their identities with pseudonyms is obviously absurd. And as for AdVon telling Sports Illustrated that all its articles are written by humans? Its employees disagree, and we’ve got a new story coming out about that soon.”

Need for guardrails

Although The Arena Group denies using AI to produce stories for Sports Illustrated, the controversy underscores the question of how the media industry and other content producers should address the “lack of robust ethical guardrails” on using the technology, Benjamin Lange, an AI ethicist and research group lead at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich  told CBS MoneyWatch. 

“Journalistic ethics requires adherence to basic principles of honesty, trust, accuracy and objectivity,” he said.

Several publishers and other companies have had to retract articles this year that were produced by AI. In January, for example, CNET published corrections for a number of AI-generated stories after critics noted they were rife with errors. In August, Microsoft in August pulled a computer-generated travel guide from its website after readers pointed out that it recommended tourists in Ottawa, Canada, visit a local food bank. 

Shares of The Arena Group, which is listed on Nasdaq, plunged more than 22% on Tuesday to $2.09 following Futurism’s report. The company, formerly known as TheMaven, rebranded itself in 2021 and is led by Ross Levinsohn, who previously served as CEO of Sports Illustrated. Earlier this month, The Arena Group announced that it had merged with Bridge Media Networks, which produces news, sports and other content.

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