Tabloid Fires Editor for AI-Generated “Interview” With Injured Celebrity

Relieved of Duties Here’s a pro tip for editors: do not, under any circumstance, publish an artificial intelligence-generated “interview” with someone you didn’t actually interview, especially if they have suffered a life-altering injury. Anne Hoffmann, the longtime editor of the German-language tabloid Die Aktuelle, is learning this lesson the hard way. She has been “relieved of duties,” per the magazine’s publisher, for publishing an AI-generated interview with Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher, who suffered a brain injury from a skiing accident in 2013 and hasn’t made a public appearance since then. In the statement, the publisher said that it “apologizes to the Schumacher family” after the star’s representatives said that they plan to press charges against the tabloid for publishing the interview last week. “This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared,” Bianca Pohlmann, FUNKE’s managing director, said in a translation of the statement. “It in no way corresponds to the standards of journalism that we — and our readers — expect from a publisher like FUNKE.” Phony Interview The “interview” in question appeared under a cover story claiming to be “the first interview” with the F1 legend since his accident, and featured a made-up quote attributed to Schumacher about how his “life has changed completely.” While the piece did mention that it was generated by an AI and did not feature any actual quotes from the ex-racer himself, it didn’t do so until the very end of the piece. As ESPN reports, this was not the first time…Tabloid Fires Editor for AI-Generated “Interview” With Injured Celebrity

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