Sports Illustrated's AI Mess Another Dagger In The Heart Of Sports Writers / Fans
Discovering the beloved magazine of my entire life has turned to the dark side has been a bitter pill to swallow...
Sigh. Sports journalism just continues to take one brutal beating after another with no sign of a letup coming anytime soon.
Only this latest blow really hurts.
It feels as if someone has punched me directly in the gut with all the force of the scientifically put-together Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
I’m of course talking about the jaw-dropping revelation that the iconic, fabled institution that is Sports Illustrated has conducted a full on makeout session with the evil temptress that is AI. Or Artificial Intelligent to give it its full name.
Per the website Futurism, Sports Illustrated, the iconic magazine, that so many of us grew up reading and a brand that was for so long the very pinnacle of sports writing, has been using AI to create fake people who then in turn create fake articles.
Futurism built its case on a guy called Drew Ortiz, who may sound human but actually isn’t. Outside of his Sports Illustrated profile, it has proved impossible to find any trace of Drew anywhere else. Plus, you can actually buy Drew’s profile picture on a site that sells AI-generated headshots. That is probably the giveaway to this whole thing.
Dig deeper, which Futurism gladly does for us, and the plot suddenly thickens like a vile bowl of stew. In an article about volleyball, featured on SI, Drew treats us to the beauty of the written word with sentences like this:
“Volleyball can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.”
Now, you don’t have to possess even one brain cell to come to the logical conclusion that the above insult to the written language wasn’t written by a human, but instead by some robot somewhere.
Sadly, that article about volleyball - which I’ll never read - wasn’t the only example of an actual Sports Illustrated piece being generated by AI, according to people on the inside that cooperated with Futurism on this story.
If you want to read the full-blown expose, then please click HERE.
It won’t shock you in the slightest to learn that this bombshell has created one heck of a shitstorm. You also won’t be surprised that The Arena Group, who owns Sports Illustrated and who seem content to run a sacred and beloved institution into the ground, have come out swinging and denied the allegations. However, they’ve since deleted all the AI-generated content and authors from the Sports Illustrated site.
That screams guilty to me.
I’ll warn you now; this isn’t going to be an article preaching the importance of keeping AI away from sports writing. I think that is obvious, and you can read smarter people than me dive deep into the whole war against AI and its various evils.
Instead, I want to put a personal spin on this whole sorry mess.
As I made abundantly clear at the top, this latest attack on sports journalism feels personal. Because it is.
Being obsessed with American sports but largely cut off from it due to living in England, especially back in 2008, I relied on the hallowed pages of Sports Illustrated to satisfy my cravings.
I’d run to the only store in my town that sold Sports Illustrated twice a month in order to gleefully pick up my copy, before racing home to devour every single word on every single page. It became a holy ritual. A twice-monthly essential in my life. I became addicted to America’s best and most famous sports magazine like some become hooked on cocaine.
I’d go into that same store every single day to ensure I never missed an issue, an obsession that lasted years. Even to this day I still don’t miss a single issue of Sports Illustrated.
If I lay back and close my eyes, I can still picture some of the iconic covers and issues that I read intensely cover to cover. Peter King’s cover story on Peyton Manning that led the November 16, 2009 issue. The ‘Myth Of The Good-Looking Quarterback’ issue in 2016. And how about the Dodgers / Kings cover in October 2014, back when SI used to bother with an NHL season preview. That doesn’t happen anymore.
There’s simply too many to mention.
And I used to hold on to every single issue as if they were a precious artifact wrestled from the dusty, perhaps cursed clutch of a mummy found deep in the tomb of one of Egypt’s pyramids.
To dive deeper, one of the biggest driving forces behind my absolute unrelenting obsession with Sports Illustrated was down to one man…
Peter King.
I’ve mentioned Peter a lot on this site for the simple reason that he is my absolute idol, and a big reason behind my mission to become a respected sports writer in the United States.
Back when I was first starting to fall in love with American sports, Peter King was one of the leading voices for SI, the headline act of a stable packed to the brim with uber-talented writers. I mean, some of the greatest sports writers to have graced this world with their God-like talents cut their teeth with Sports Illustrated.
But Peter was my ultimate muse. I would flick through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated, hoping beyond hope that one of his in-depth, beautifully-written, awe-inspiring football articles would be waiting for me. When I struck gold, it was the highlight of my week.
He also led the hugely-successful MMQB site that was attached to SI. It is no overstatement to declare that I didn’t miss a single word of Peter’s, both in print and online. But especially in print.
I wanted to be just like Peter King with every fibre of my very being. And I still do.
Although Peter has since long departed from SI, I still pick up the magazine every single month like an addict who can’t quite kick that drug habit. I’m beyond saving at this point. Despite the fact that greedy corporate overlords have done everything within their power to try and strip Sports Illustrated for parts and leave it broken. Despite the fact hockey fans are lucky if their beloved sport gets a mention in the magazine every five or six issues. The days of the NHL getting its own preview issue along with the NBA are long gone. In fact, they don’t even get a page when the NBA Season Preview hits the shelves.
The magazine, while a shadow of its former self and long removed from the glory days, still offers a tangible reminder of why the written word, and old-fashioned, reliable, quality sports writing, will always, always have a place in this world. There are still talented writers there who bust a gut to try and maintain the high standards and in-depth reporting that Sports Illustrated was built upon.
However, Sports Illustrated has resembled a crumbling empire for quite some time now and this latest knockout blow may prove too damaging to recover from. Any integrity and credibility the brand had left is now gone.
It is a sad day. For a boy who grew up keeping a copy of Sports Illustrated by his bed at all times, dreaming of writing for that very same magazine one day, being the writer who finally got to write about a Rangers Stanley Cup win on the national stage, perhaps even seeing his byline on the cover, this is too tough to take. I can’t even comprehend that the home of so many sportswriting giants would directly stab them in the heart and jump into bed with the enemy that is threatening to wipe us out for good.
It’s heartbreaking, to be brutally honest.
And it is yet another painful reminder that sports media as we once knew it is dead.