Sports Illustrated Shows Downfall of Sports Betting Content

• Sports Illustrated created fake writer profiles with AI-generated headshots and bios to make their AI-generated content appear real.
• Sports Illustrated denied using AI but deleted the fake writer profiles and content associated with them when inquired about the AI use.
• The sports media company published dozens of sports betting articles with the use of AI.

NEW YORK – Recent discoveries show Sports Illustrated posted many articles under fake, AI-generated authors. The shocking news portrays the downfall of sports betting content that’s taken over by AI-generated content.

Sports Illustrated author Drew Ortiz posted many articles pertaining to legal sports betting and sporting news. However, Ortiz is just a fake persona that Sports Illustrated used to publish their AI-generated content under.

The headshot used for Drew Ortiz’s Sports illustrated author profile is for sale under “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes” on a website selling AI-generated headshots. Ortiz has no publishing history prior to Sports Illustrated and has no social media presence.

This Sports Illustrated story is wild.

The TLDR is that they bought AI-generated headshots and created fake writer profiles so they could publish AI-generated content and make it look real.

They then deleted the content when asked about it.

Super sad. SI used to be the best. https://t.co/xgDDtxP9PD pic.twitter.com/Wkq618VFxQ

— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) November 27, 2023

Artificial Intelligence Taking Over Sports Betting Content

Ortiz also isn’t the only AI-generated content writer at Sports Illustrated. Another “Product Reviews Team Member” named Sora Tanaka has an AI-generated headshot from the same website.

Sports Illustrated employees confirmed that its not just the headshots that are AI-generated, but it’s the sports betting content too. According to an anonymous employee, “The content is absolutely AI-generated, no matter how much they say that it’s not.”

The landscape of sports betting content is flooded with bots and AI advertising for legal online sportsbooks, but it’s unfortunate to see from what once was a trustworthy sports media website. Publishing AI-generated content and posing it as human-made is a violation of media ethics and hurts Sports Illustrated reader trust.

News tags: Drew Ortiz | Sora Tanaka | Sports Illustrated