A magazine editor faced serious consequences after she was dismissed for publishing an “interview” with F1 racing legend Michael Schumacher, which turned out to be fabricated using a chatbot. Schumacher, a seven-time F1 world champion, has been away from the public eye since 2013 following a severe head injury from a skiing accident in France.
The German tabloid Die Aktuelle ran the article on its front page, featuring a photo of Schumacher and a sensational headline: “Michael Schumacher, The First Interview, World Sensation.” A smaller strapline hinted, “It sounds deceptively real.” The quotations in the so-called interview were generated by Character.ai, an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, both known for their impressive, human-like conversations.
In the fake interview, the chatbot impersonating Schumacher discussed his family life and health. “My wife and my children were a blessing to me and without them I would not have managed it,” the chatbot claimed, adding, “Naturally they are also very sad, how it has all happened.”
Schumacher’s family is planning to sue the publication, as noted by BBC. The magazine’s publisher, Funke, issued an apology to the Schumacher family and stated that the editor-in-chief, Anne Hoffmann, who had been with the magazine since 2009, was immediately dismissed.
Bianca Pohlmann, the managing director of Funke magazines, condemned the piece, calling it tasteless and misleading. She emphasized that it did not meet the company’s journalistic standards.
Character.ai, introduced in September last year, allows users to “chat” with various figures, including celebrities, historical, fictional characters, or ones created by users. While this might be entertaining in private, publishing content based on chatbot responses is evidently a risky move.
As generative AI technology advances and becomes a bigger part of our lives, it’s likely that more mistakes of this nature will occur. However, this incident with Die Aktuelle might urge publishers to more carefully consider their use of AI-generated content.