Ross Levinsohn has been fired as CEO of Sports Illustrated and publishers The Arena Group, weeks after Futurism reported that SI had been running stories generated by artificial intelligence, using bogus names and AI-generated byline pictures. Levinsohn, the magazine's CEO since 2019, is the latest exec to go in what CNN describes as a "C-suite bloodbath" at The Arena Group. Chief operating officer Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster were fired last week.
The company said Levinsohn was fired to improve its "operational efficiency and revenue." His replacement is Manoj Bhargava, founder of the company that makes the 5-Hour Energy drink. A Bhargava spokesperson tells the BBC that Levinsohn's firing is part of efforts to improve the company and "had absolutely nothing to do with the AI issue at all." After layoffs at SI earlier this year, Levinsohn said that while artificial intelligence won't replace journalism, "rapidly improving AI technologies can create enterprise value for our brands and partners."
After the report on allegedly AI-generated stories last month, Arena said the content in question was e-commerce articles from advertising company, AdVon Commerce, the Guardian reports. Arena said it had been assured the content was written by humans, but the stories were removed after they "learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy---actions we strongly condemn." (Read more Sports Illustrated stories.)