‘TASTELESS AND MISLEADING’

German Magazine Editor Fired Over AI-Generated Michael Schumacher Interview

Editor-in-chief Anne Hoffmann was “relieved of her duties” after more than a decade at the helm of Die Aktuelle.

The editor-in-chief of a German weekly that ran an “interview” with Formula One great Michael Schumacher generated by artificial intelligence has been fired, according to its publishers. Schumacher, 54, is a seven-time world champion who retreated from the public eye after suffering a serious brain injury while skiing in the French Alps in 2013. “This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared,” said Bianca Pohlmann, the managing director of parent company Funke. “It in no way meets the standards of journalism that we and our readers expect from a publisher like Funke.” Her statement comes after Schumacher’s family vowed to launch legal action against Die Aktuelle, the magazine that used the Character.AI chatbot to cook up the phony conversation. Going on to stress the “immediate personnel consequences” of the situation, Pohlmann said, “Die Aktuelle editor-in-chief Anne Hoffmann, who has held journalistic responsibility for the paper since 2009, will be relieved of her duties as of today.”