Breaking news. The Spritzler investigative team has recently learned that the cover model for 2022 was in fact an AI generated image, mean't to promote ...well you know where I'm going with this. Anyway Yumi doesn't exist. She's actually an AI enhanced model by the name of Ciara (shown below).
Sports Illustrated publisher fires CEO after outlet caught posting AI-generated stories with fake authors
By Shannon Thaler, NY Post
Published Dec. 12, 2023, 3:14 p.m. ET
Ross Levinsohn, who served as The Arena Group’s chief since 2020, was terminated by the company’s board of directors on Monday, effective immediately, the publisher said in a press release.
Manoj Bhargava, the founder of the caffeine brand 5-Hour Energy and a majority investor in The Arena Group, will be joining the company as chairman interim CEO, announced The Arena Group, which also owns Men’s Journal and TheStreet.
Yep, Ciara's likeness was digitally enhanced to be less threatenng to people who may choose to identify as female (or not, hey I'm ok with whatever you're calling yourself lately). Honestly, I don't find her that threatening but you may.*
Vince Bodiford, a representative for Bhargava, insisted to The Post that Levinsohn’s ousting had nothing to do with Sports Illustrated’s AI nightmare late last month, but rather part of a larger effort by The Arena Group’s board of directors “to improve the operational efficiency and the revenue of the company.”
“That included significant changes with the leadership team,” Bodiford added, noting that three other C-suite executives were fired last week — chief operating officer Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster.
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Levinsohn addressed the executive shakeup in a LinkedIn post also shared Monday, which failed to touch on the company’s recent troubles and instead touted his time with The Arena Group as “an incredible ride.”
The timing of Levinsohn’s firing did, however, raise eyebrows, especially considering SI’s high-profile mishap late last month, when news site Futurism outed SI for posting AI-generated stories under bylines from made-up reporters whose photos could be found on a website used to buy AI-generated headshots.
*Please don't tell me you believed my made up non sense. Really?
After being contacted about the deceptive practice, the articles disappeared from SI’s site, the outlet reported.
A digital archive database, however, still shows that one story penned by a made-up man with the name Drew Ortiz ranked “the best full-size volleyballs.”
“Volleyball can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with,” read the article, which The Arena Group as since said were supplied by a third-party provider, AdVon Commerce.
Bodiford told The Post that The Arena Group is “taking steps to ensure that” SI has, in fact, scrubbed its landing pages of AI-generated content.
“We are very, very tuned into the importance of this issue,” Bhargava’s spokesman added.
Aside from hurting SI’s reputation, the AI debacle drew a lot of scrutiny from the outlet’s own staffers, who described Futurism’s report of the deceptive practices as “horrifying.”
SI's executive shakeup comes just weeks after news site Futurism revealed it had posted AI-generated stories under bylines from made-up reporters, including Drew Ortiz.
“Along with basic principles of honesty, trust, journalistic ethics, etc. — I take seriously the weight of a Sports Illustrated byline. It meant something to me long before I ever dreamed of working here,” SI staff writer Emma Baccellieri, wrote on X in the wake of the news breaking. “This report was horrifying to read.”
“The practices described in the story published today do real damage to the credibility of the hardworking humans I have been honored to work with for the past 9 years,” Mitch Goldich, a fellow writer and editor at the magazine, also posted to X.
Bhargava, meanwhile, has already positioned himself as a sharp-elbowed, outspoken boss, making headlines earlier this month when he told Arena Group staffers at a town hall meeting: “No one is important. I am not important. … The amount of useless stuff you guys do is staggering.”
In a list of highlights from the 90-minute meeting, people in attendance told Front Office Sports that Bhargava ranted about recycling being “useless,” declared “PowerPoints are illegal” because such presentations are a waste of time and demanded that workers “stop doing dumb stuff.”
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