We, the workers of the SI Union, remain outraged over reporting that Sports Illustrated’s operator, The Arena Group, published AI-generated content with fabricated bylines and writer profiles under SI’s name. We have been equally outraged by The Arena Group’s response: We have yet to receive an adequate explanation for how such a breach of trust with our audience could have occurred. And nobody in company management has personally taken accountability for this damaging mistake. Our journalists have been forced to bear the brunt of the reputational damage that the company brought upon SI.
We understand that the company has since been taken over by a new owner, Manoj Bhargava, and we look forward to a productive working relationship with him. But we can’t simply move on from this issue or let The Arena Group sweep it under the rug. Bhargava has made clear that he believes in straightforward accountability and plain speech, so we are calling for remaining Arena Group CEO Ross Levinsohn to:
Publicly explain how these posts came to be published and take accountability for that process. Explain why and how The Arena Group entered into a partnership with AdVon Commerce, the third party that created the content, and a company that self-describes as providing machine learning and AI solutions.
Submit to us a timeline with dates of the following events: entering into a partnership with AdVon, learning about concerns AdVon was using AI-generated content, opening an investigation into those concerns, hearing from reporters at Futurism, declining to comment for Futurism’s story, taking down concerning content from SI’s website, and terminating the contract with AdVon.
Include a representative selected by union leadership in the company’s internal investigation into this matter.
Publicly guarantee that all future editorial work at Sports Illustrated will be performed by humans and only humans. The company must commit to language enshrining this guarantee in its next contract with the SI Union.
The SI Union takes this issue incredibly seriously. If management fails to meet our demands, we are prepared to withhold our bylines from our work published by Sports Illustrated.
We understand the power of a byline, and the commitment writers make to readers when they attach their name to a story. The Arena Group must show that it understands what a byline means, too.