Arena has now ended its partnership with AdVon and is investigating AdVon’s assurances that artificial intelligence was not used to write the articles.
According to Arena, AdVon said it used “both counterplagiarism and counter-A.I. software.” But AdVon markets itself to potential customers as a company deeply involved in artificial intelligence. On LinkedIn, AdVon says it develops machine learning and artificial intelligence for e-commerce. A page for the candidacy of Ben Faw, AdVon’s co-founder and chief executive, for the board of directors for Harvard’s alumni association similarly describes AdVon as using machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Mr. Faw did not respond to requests for comment.
For more than a half century, Sports Illustrated was the standard-bearer in sports journalism. It was the home of sportswriting titans like Frank Deford and Dan Jenkins, and photographers like Walter Iooss and Jim Drake. Making the cover of the magazine or winning its Sportsman (later Sportsperson) of the Year award was the mark of a star, from Muhammad Ali to Naomi Osaka. The magazine’s extremely profitable swimsuit issue arrived like a cultural thunderclap year after year.
At its peak, Sports Illustrated had a print circulation of more than three million. The magazine has struggled, however, to adapt to the digital age. Monday’s revelation was just the latest sign of drift at Sports Illustrated, exacerbated by a relentless pursuit of engagement with the site’s non-journalistic entities.
“If you look at the magazine’s history, there’s just been a series of bad editorial decisions,” said Michael MacCambridge, a journalist and the author of 1997’s “The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine.”
Originally posted 2023-11-28 21:07:28.