FROM SOCIALS.

Schumacher scandal: magazine publishes a fake interview with artificial intelligence

Michael Schumacher's family is threatening legal action against the German magazine Die Aktuelle for publishing a 'fake' interview generated by artificial intelligence. 

The former Formula 1 champion never spoke after his accident on the snows of Méribel in 2013 and the family took this publication as an insult. 

The dialogue was created by the chatbot platform, Character.ai, and the German tabloid implied that the content had been generated by the technology and not by the former driver.

photo cover Die Aktuelle
Only artificial intelligence
Michael Schumacher's family is considering taking legal action against German magazine Die Aktuelle over the publication of an artificial intelligence-generated (fake) interview. The dialogue, passed off as the 'first interview' with the seven-time world champion since his 2013 accident in the French mountains, was created by a chatbot platform named Character.ai.
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The contents of the mock interview
The publication includes several questions addressed to Schumacher, including "How have you been since the accident you had in 2013?" and "How are you today?". Die Aktuelle specified in a footnote that the content of the interview had been generated by technology and not obtained from an actual conversation.
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The family's reaction
The family of the historic racing driver was very shocked by the publication of this fake interview and is considering taking legal action against the German magazine. Their spokesman told the Guardian: 'It is a disgrace that Michael's reputation is being exploited in this way. The accident in 2013 is difficult enough for the family to deal with, we don't need them making up fake news about Michael's state of health'.
photo Die Aktuelle
The technology behind the interview
The platform used to create this mock interview, Character.ai, is very similar to ChatGPT. It is based on a machine learning process that is able to generate more and more evolved and elaborated answers over time. Other links in the interview led to a site that collects plausible content and phrases of famous people made with the same technology.
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The reactions
The event triggered a series of negative reactions from fans of the historic driver, but also among social media users in general. Many users expressed their disagreement with the fake news produced using artificial intelligence and appreciated the Schumacher family's solid response in this regard.
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