Sports Illustrated Going All In With AI For Stories And Ideas, Claims It's Not Looking To Replace Human Writers

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Sports Illustrated is stepping into the futuristic and unknown world of artificial intelligence.

Sports Illustrated's publisher, The Arena Group, announced that it is turning to AI to not only pitch its writers story ideas but actually produce articles.

The Arena Group told The Wall Street Journal that it will be working with AI startups Jasper and Nota "as part of an effort to generate stories that pull information from its own library content. The company is also using tech from OpenAI, the creator of the popular application ChatGPT, which quickly creates human-like content.

The Men's Journal, which is also published by Arena, already has AI-generated articles. The byline for the AI-generated pieces is 'Men's Fitness Editors' and then fact-checked by an actual human on the editorial team.

ChatGPT has become a popular artificial intelligence software. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

READ: BIG WEEK FOR AI: CHATBOT PASSES EXAMS, PENS SPEECH FOR CONGRESSMAN

Any (human) reading this content can see the potential writing on the wall that this addition of artificial intelligence would mean fewer jobs for writers and editors, but Arena Group claims that won't be the case.

"It’s not going to replace the art of creating content,” Ross Levinsohn, Arena Group’s chairman and chief executive, told The WSJ. “It’s giving the content creators, whether they’re writers or social creators, real efficiency and real access to the archives we have.” 

While Arena can say it won't "replace" the art of creating content, it will certainly change it.

Editors at The Men's Journal are already fact-checking and editing content written by the AI, and it sounds like that will be a reality, in some aspect, at Sports Illustrated very soon.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.