In the midst of an an AI debacle the CEO of Arena Group which publishes mastheads including Sports Illustrated and financial services title, The Street has been shown the door.

Ross Levinsohn was shown the door after it was revealed the company created fake authors along with AI-created profile pictures.

The story first came to light due to reporting by Futurism, whose real journalist Maggie Harrison spotlighted the example of Drew Ortiz, of whom Arena Group claimed "Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature."

Presumably, those perils include large language models.

Worse, the image of Fake-Drew is actually for sale on a site that flogs AI-generated headshots, according to the report.

Arena Group subsequently deleted the stories and profiles. And now also, its CEO.

He has been replaced in the interim by Manoj Bhargava, who owns the majority of shares at Arena Group.

It's been a busy week for Arena's HR manager. As CNN reported, "The Arena Group fired three of its major executives: operations president and chief operating officer Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster."