Sports Illustrated’s reported use of AI authors, alleged cover-up causes outrage

In a statement to the New York Daily News, The Arena Group denied that Sports Illustrated published AI-generated articles. — Mark Brown/Getty Images/TNS

NEW YORK: Explosive allegations that Sports Illustrated (SI) ran articles under artificial-intelligence authors – and later attempted to cover up doing so – continue to outrage readers, the outlet’s employees and the journalism community at large.

On Monday, the website Futurism reported fake authors with AI-created headshots populated the SI site and would be periodically removed and replaced with others. Some of the actual articles were also created by AI, a source claimed.