Google partners with company behind Sports Illustrated's AI authorship scandal
Google has entered into a partnership with AdVon Commerce, a company that was recently involved in a scandal over AI-generated content. Last November, it was revealed that Sports Illustrated, an American sports magazine, had been publishing articles written by non-existent authors, a practice traced back to AdVon Commerce, which provides AI and ML solutions for e-commerce. The publisher at the time, The Arena Group, responded by removing all articles written by these fictitious authors and severing ties with AdVon.
AdVon's AI content controversy
AdVon Commerce did not deny the use of fabricated bylines or AI-created profile pictures. However, they maintained that the Sports Illustrated articles were penned by real people. They admitted to creating AI-generated content for other clients. This controversy led Google to take action against what it termed as "scaled content abuse," criticizing the use of generative AI tools to churn out large volumes of content without adding value for users.
Google's response to AI content misuse
In response to the controversy, Google updated its guidelines, introducing measures against "scaled content abuse" and banning "site reputation abuse." The latter appears to be a direct reference to practices similar to those employed by AdVon for Sports Illustrated. These changes reflected Google's stance against the misuse of generative AI tools for producing large amounts of content without providing value to users.
AdVon's partnership with Google Cloud
Despite Google's recent crackdown on AI content, AdVon announced a "close working partnership with Google Cloud" to launch a product called AdVonAI. This announcement was initially met with skepticism due to its release date of April 1, traditionally associated with April Fools pranks. However, there are indications that the partnership is genuine as Google did not dispute the accuracy of the recently issued press release and Dai Vu, a director at Google, shared the news on his LinkedIn account.
AdVonAI's role in content generation
The press release suggests that AdVonAI will assist businesses in generating large volumes of automatically produced material to enhance search rankings. This appears to contradict Google's recent measures against "scaled content abuse." AdVonAI's page on Google Cloud claims it has already produced a significant amount of content for large retail clients like Target and Walmart. The service costs businesses $500 per month plus a usage fee, from which Google receives a portion.
