The UMass Football Blog is an AI-free site. All content (including mistakes) is written by me.
Stuff I link to is rapidly becoming another world. I've always been a technology/science buff so I've signed up with a number of language models and have been playing around with them. Over the weekend, I received an e-mail from one of them about the marvels of content generation they can provide.
"Key Benefits:
Up to 100 article generations in parallel
Streamlined content creation
Customizable article parameters
Ensured factual accuracy with citations"
And
"Keep an eye out! We're in the process of expanding your options with an array of various article types to select from, ensuring you have the right fit for every content need.
Comparison blogs
Product reviews
News articles
Factual articles
How-to guides
Blog posts
Technical guides"
Check out this article from Athlon Sports: UMass Football 2024: Season Preview and Prediction". It looks to me to be 100% AI written. The AI had access to the NCAA football stats and derived the rest of the verbiage off that.
Check out this doozy: College Football betting guide: Notre Dame, Independents, PAC-12 and Mountain West.
From the articles' section on UMass:
"Nearly independent no longer! UMass made its return to the MAC in 2025, where it resided from 2012-15. UMass resurrected its program after folding in 1906 and opted for independence after that four-year stretch. Since returning to the football field, it’s been tough sledding for the Minutemen."
The AI probably hit a source that said something like "UMass dropped it's MAC conference affiliation in 2016 and returned to Independent football". The AI couldn't copy that directly so the language model paraphrased the source into the wording above. Where did the 1906 come from? Language models tend to just invent "facts".
If you're interested in AI language models, and you should be, (because most of the "sports writing" you're going to be reading from now on will be coming from that source), I recommend: What is ChatGPT doing...and why does it work?
It's not just sports writing. Check out Retraction Watch's list of "100 scientific papers and peer reviews" that appear to have been written by ChatGPT. Those articles appeared in various professional journals.
Welcome to the post-truth world.