Arena Group fires CEO in wake of Sports Illustrated AI articles scandal
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
And wow, the new interim CEO: """ Bhargava is the founder of the company behind the 5-Hour Energy Drink product. """
I'm not a fan of 5-hour energy but I heard Bhargava interviewed on a podcast and he seems like an interesting and unusual person. He spent 5-7 years in a Buddhist monastery I think? In any case, got a good impression of him.
As for effects, it’s maybe “cleaner” than the jittery that comes with large amounts of caffeine, and certainly easier on the body than kratom if you’re not adjusted to it. For a gas station stimulant it’s pretty decent imo.
(I also don't like coffee, but I also haven't driven since high school and like likely never will again. It does sometimes feel like a lot of "infrastructure" is set up for the majority of people who do like coffee, though; just the other day, I visited someone in a co-working space that had complementary drinks, but only coffee-related things like lattes and cappuccinos and such that I've never learned the difference between because I don't like any of them. I ended up buying a drink from a nearby vending machine instead)
I would guess AI authors would do both. There has to be more to the story for sure.
Cause I BELIEVE in the future.
–Common B. Citizen
> The release did not mention the AI scandal from November, which was spurred by an investigative report published by the science and technology news publication Futurism. Earlier this year, a round of layoffs hit the magazine shortly after the Arena Group’s CEO and chairman, Ross Levinsohn, announced the company’s incorporation of AI. Sports Illustrated accused of publishing articles written by AI Read more
> Among fake profiles uncovered by Futurism was that of purported author “Sora Tanaka” which claims she is a product reviewer. The page said: “Sora has always been a fitness guru, and loves to try different foods and drinks. Ms Tanaka is thrilled to bring her fitness and nutritional expertise to the Product Reviews Team, and promises to bring you nothing but the best of the best.”
> Tanaka is not a real person.
Essentially, the 'Reviewer' was a caricature for the genre (e.x. the fighting game Reviewer was 'slasher quan' or somesuch) however one could tell from the writing style it was not just one person doing the writing.
Otoh at least they tried to play it straight?
> From 2001 to 2005, Levinsohn was senior vice president and general manager at Fox Sports Interactive Media, a division of News Corporation.[9] In late 2004, he was named president of Fox Interactive Media and oversaw a controversial, and arguably fraudulent, acquisition of MySpace for $580 million.[10] Levinsohn resigned from News Corp. in November 2006 and was replaced by his cousin.[11]
> Levinsohn led Yahoo for two months as interim CEO in 2012. After the board of directors passed him over for the permanent CEO position, hiring Google executive Marissa Mayer, Levinsohn left the company.[18]
> In 2014, Levinsohn became executive chairman of Scout Media, a sports digital media network.[20] The firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2016, seeking approval to sell what remained of the business at auction.[21][22] Levinsohn and Heckman were named as defendants in a shareholder lawsuit filed in 2017, in federal court.[23]
> On 21 August 2017, Levinsohn was named the publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times by tronc, replacing Davan Maharaj.[24] Levinsohn was placed on unpaid leave in January 2018, after reports of two sexual harassment lawsuits, 'frat house' behavior and questionable decisions on the job from interviews with 26 former colleagues and associates.[27][28] A law firm hired by Tronc to investigate the sexual harassment claims found no wrongdoing after a three-week investigation.[26][29]
The Guardian article is a bit handwavy about the AI connection but I don't think there's any evidence that this led to Levinsohn's undoing. Maven/Arena has been a... challenging company for some time.
""" Last week Arena terminated the employment of operations president and COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster. """
Today we have jobs for people to rearticulate box scores.
If a computer can do it adequately it should be done by a computer. I don't want to bring back the button pusher and I'm okay with ai authors. But they really shouldn't lie about it
You might need such an assistant to summarize a Sports Illustrated issue; doesn't seem like you have any familiarity with it.
Wasn't there recently some entirely AI "musician"? I'm guessing the person you're replying to doesn't see an ongoing need for musicians either.
If you can’t tell then what’s the problem? If you can what’s the problem?
I have bigger problems with everyday lies that already happen that are treated as “normal”. For example, advertising a price cut as if there’s a discount by raising the everyday price and discounting to the previous everyday price, using celebrities/influencers to promote products, paying for product reviews in some way, etc etc.
Journalist have regularly covered journalism scandals. Can you point to AI that is capable of the same?
Another example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2014/11/12/read-the...
https://www.thoughtco.com/the-top-journalism-scandals-207375...
That depends entirely upon one's definition of "admirable". Personally, if the act requires one to be deceitful (eg, lying about the fact that your writers aren't writers), then that's not very admirable at all to me. If that's what you find admirable, well... alrighty then.