A magazine touted Michael Schumacher's first interview in years. It was actually AI
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Michael Schumacher, pictured at a press conference in Brazil in 2006, hasn't spoken publicly since suffering a near-fatal head injury in 2013.
A German tabloid magazine raised hopes and eyebrows earlier this month when it published what it called the "first interview" with Michael Schumacher, the race car legend who hasn't spoken publicly since suffering a near-fatal brain injury in December 2013.
The April 15
Die Aktuelle
article featured quotes purportedly from the German athlete, discussing his medical condition and life after his skiing accident the kind of information that his family has fought to keep private for nearly a decade. The big reveal came at the very end:
"Did Michael Schumacher really say everything himself?" the article concludes, according to
The Independent
. "The interview was online. On a page that has to do with artificial intelligence, or AI for short."
Die Familie von Michael #Schumacher geht juristisch gegen Die Aktuelle vor. Das hat uns Schumachers Management besttigt. Das Blatt hatte KI-Antworten als Das erste Interview! mit Schumacher verkauft.
Wir hatten am Montag darber berichtet: https://t.co/JCW7efssrV
The AI-generated interview sparked backlash immediately, and Schumacher's family said through its spokesperson that it plans to sue the magazine. (Their representative declined to comment further in an email to NPR.)
Within a week of the interview publishing,
Die Aktuelle
fired editor-in-chief Anne Hoffmann and issued an apology to Schumacher's family.
"This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared," said Bianca Pohlmann, managing director of parent company FUNKE magazines. "It in no way corresponds to the standards of journalism that we and our readers expect from a publisher like FUNKE."
Nicole Kraft, an associate professor of communications at The Ohio State University, agrees.
"The idea that we would allow an AI program to manufacture what they think Michael Schumacher would be saying at this point in his life is really just patently unethical," she says.
While Kraft was horrified to see the faked interview, she was not surprised.
"This is our new reality," she says. "And we're going to need to be much more discerning in how we interpret information, and how we process that that's in front of us and not necessarily take it at face value. That's going to be a responsibility for every person who's a consumer of any information."
The magazine called the piece "deceptively real"
At first glance, the cover with a large photo of a smiling Schumacher looks as though it is promoting an exclusive interview.
"No meager, nebulous half-sentences from friends," reads a translation of the cover text by
The Verge
. "But answers from him! By Michael Schumacher, 54!"
Only one clue suggests that might not be the case: a line calling the interview "deceptively real."
The spread itself features quotes attributed to Schumacher, about his injury, recovery and family.
"I was so badly injured that I lay for months in a kind of artificial coma, because otherwise my body couldn't have dealt with it all," reads one, per
The Independent.
"I've had a tough time but the hospital team has managed to bring me back to my family."
In reality, very little is known about Schumacher's condition. His family has fiercely safeguarded his privacy.
Schumacher's life after his legendary career is a mystery
Schumacher won 91 Grand Prix races and seven world championship titles during his two-decade career, before retiring in 2012.
The following December, while skiing in the French Alps, he fell and hit his head on a rock, shattering his helmet. Schumacher was put into a medically induced coma and underwent two operations to remove blood clots around his brain.
Doctors were initially unsure whether Schumacher would survive. But by June 2014, his manager said he had awoken from his coma and was being released from the French hospital to one in Switzerland to continue his rehabilitation. Details have been scarce ever since.
His wife, Corinna Schumacher, said in a 2021 Netflix documentary that the family lives together at home and does therapy. She described Michael as "different, but he's here."
"We do everything we can to make Michael better and to make sure he's comfortable, and to simply make him feel our family, our bond," she said. "We're trying to carry on as a family, the way Michael liked it and still does. And we are getting on with our lives."
This isn't the Schumachers' first case against the magazine
The Schumachers have had issues with
Die Aktuelle
in the past, as ESPN reports.
A controversial 2014 cover of the magazine featured a picture of the couple alongside the headline "Awake." The actual story was about other people who had woken up from comas.
The following year, the family sued the magazine over a cover that said "a new love" had entered Corinna's life: It was actually about the couple's daughter. Their lawsuit was dismissed.
Kraft believes the Schumachers have a strong civil case this time around, with either a privacy or defamation claim.
But she says while fabrication is not unheard of in journalism, "we're in uncharted waters" when it comes to legal consequences for AI-generated fabrications.
"I'm not sure what their level of success will be because we are in a brand new space of law," she adds. "And the legal system itself hasn't really caught up with the technological advances of the internet, of social media, of this rapid revolution and evolution of media."
Kraft notes that European countries generally do not have the same level of free speech protections as the U.S., where a case of this sort would probably be more likely to settle before getting to court (as was the case with Dominion Voting Systems'
Friday, April 28, 2023 at 9:07 am