Sports Illustrated Completely Scrubs Reporter From Its Website in Response to Accusations of AI-Generated Plagiarism

(AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson, File)

Sports Illustrated scrubbed any trace of one of its reporters amid allegations that AI was used in the creation of their published work.

The move was pointed out in a Monday report from Futurism. According to the report, the controversy stemmed from an article published by Sportico. Just two days after that article went live, Sports Illustrated published a similar report using Sportico’s data without attribution. Their article was written by a reporter named Parker Loverich.

The Futurism report continued:

Sportico editor Dan Bernstein, who bylined the original piece, took to X on Sunday to accuse Sports Illustrated of plagiarism, suggesting in the post that AI may have been used to generate the piece in question.

“The husk of the Sports Illustrated brand is stealing entire stories from people without credit, seemingly using AI,” wrote Bernstein. “This becomes very obvious when it’s stealing data only you’ve reported!”

Then, Futurism continued, Sports Illustrated deleted the article. Additionally, online accounts for Loverich also vanished from the internet, and his profile on SI’s website was deleted entirely.

In response to Berstein accusing Sports Illustrated of using AI, the outlet assured Awful Announcing that Loverich was a real person. Futurism, however, was unable to reach them for comment.

AI-centered controversy isn’t unfamiliar for Sports Illustrated. In 2023, the outlet began experimenting with AI-generated articles and even created fake author profiles for their bylines.

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