Sports News and the Artificial-Intelligence-Generated Article: Examining Identity and the Influence of Human Versus Artificial-Intelligence Authorship on Perceptions of Credibility and Online Share Likelihood

To better understand factors that influence news credibility and online sharing likelihood of artificial-intelligence (AI) -generated articles, a national survey of U.S. adults was conducted ( N = 355). Using a 3 (authorship) × 2 (byline) factorial design, participants were asked to evaluate the credibility of a sports-news article written by a human author or an AI-language model (ChatGPT or Google Gemini), with a byline indicating that the article was written by a human author or AI, and assess the likelihood they would share the article on social media. Participant predictors for article credibility, source credibility, information accuracy, and article-share likelihood significantly differed based on demographics, identity characteristics, and cognitive heuristic factors, while authorship did not significantly influence credibility perceptions or share likelihood. Across both human- and AI-authored articles, level of sport fanship significantly influenced share likelihood and perceived information accuracy. Additionally, article credibility and source credibility were significantly influenced by positive attitudes toward AI, which may signal drastic changes in how audiences will interpret and engage with AI-generated news content.