Vox Day covered it here which is where I saw it first: Literally Fake Media. Here’s the original article: Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated Writers – We asked them about it — and they deleted everything.
From the article:
There was nothing in Drew Ortiz’s author biography at Sports Illustrated to suggest that he was anything other than human.
“Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature,” it read. “Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn’t out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents’ farm.”
The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn’t seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. And even more strangely, his profile photo on Sports Illustrated is for sale on a website that sells AI-generated headshots, where he’s described as “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes.”
Ortiz isn’t the only AI-generated author published by Sports Illustrated, according to a person involved with the creation of the content who asked to be kept anonymous to protect them from professional repercussions.
“There’s a lot,” they told us of the fake authors. “I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist.”
“At the bottom [of the page] there would be a photo of a person and some fake description of them like, ‘oh, John lives in Houston, Texas. He loves yard games and hanging out with his dog, Sam.’ Stuff like that,” they continued. “It’s just crazy.”
Sports Illustrated and the rest make massive amounts of money off ad revenue and affiliate links on fake articles. People doing real work make virtually nothing in this rigged system.
Meanwhile, this website that actually creates original content has been obliterated in search even though all of the content has been created by me and only me through weeks and months and years of hard work. This includes articles I have written that previously ranked very high for niche topics. Now they are completely lost in the midst of content that is barely tangentially related.
Every single day it becomes more and more clear that so much around us is fake and ghey.
Finding Better News and Information Sources
There is SO much fakeness out there these days. Propaganda everywhere. Even who you think might be trustworthy is NOT.
Hi Kris,
Thank you for your comments. I have been reading them even though I haven’t responded. It’s been a season of lots of mothering on top of homeschooling and holiday things.
I appreciate you!
Sallie