PSA: This article was written by a human

Sports Illustrated, the publication every 90s-born sports fan grew up looking forward to each week, has been publishing articles written by fake, AI-generated authors, according to a new report from Futurism.

The evidence: Multiple author bios on Sports Illustrated’s site contain photos for sale on an AI-generated headshot website with descriptions like "neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes."

For example: one AI-writer identified by Futurism published articles under the name Drew Ortiz, whose AI-headshot-containing bio reads similar to one you’d expect from a real human.

The only problem? Outside of Sports Illustrated, Drew Ortiz doesn't seem to exist. He has no social media presence and no publishing history. Plus, articles written under his byline contain traces of AI content (aka it reads like it was written by a third grader); for instance, one states that volleyball "can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with." (Which, to be fair, is 100% true though not very insightful.)

• Futurism reports that when it reached out to Sports Illustrated’s publisher, all the AI-generated authors disappeared from SI's site without explanation.
• The publisher later put out a statement saying the content was under investigation and came from a third-party provider, and that it has ended the partnership.

📸 Big picture: SI isn’t the only publication to experiment with AI-generated content without disclosing it to audiences. CNET, MSN, USA Today, and TheStreet are some of the other alleged culprits we know about.