“This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared, [and] it in no way corresponds to the standards of journalism that we—and our readers—expect from a publisher like Funke.”
These were the stark statements of Funke managing director Bianca Pohlmann after the dismissal announcement of Die Aktuelle long-time editor-in-chief Anne Hoffman for using an AI text generator and concocting a fake interview with seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher.
The supposed talk entitled “The First Interview” seems to have stirred serious controversy among fans and even the Schumacher family as the latter has threatened to sue the said European publisher. Schumacher—for those who aren’t updated on F1-related news—has remained in private care with his family and away from the public eye since the 2013 skiing accident that caused his severe brain injury.
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The firm has since issued an apology to the racing legend and his family.
The disciplinary action was decided upon amidst editor Hoffman’s more or less 14-year strong partnership with the firm. A necessary development that we believe the broader journalistic landscape would be supportive of in the name of integrity.
“As a result of the publication of this article, personal consequences will be drawn immediately,” Pohlmann’s statement further read. “Die Aktuell editor-in-chief Anne Hoffmann, who has been responsible for journalism for the newspaper since 2009, will be relieved of her duties as of today.”
The online service provider Aol also seems to have noticed the backlash from fans, noting some called the incident “disgraceful” and “awful,” while German media expert Boris Rosenkranz thought of it as remarkably cheeky.
Die Aktuelle did own responsibility after running the interview, admitting that the quotes were in fact generated by Character.ai - a text generating AI bot — but to what end? Perhaps with the aim of showcasing how a real interview would have gone as the media outlet hinted at the words “it sounds deceptively real.” in its front pages.
Artificial Intelligence has remained the talk of the town for months now, as content generators like chat GPT and DALLE-2, among others, have gone mainstream and allowed content creation to be much more accessible, consequently springing into all sorts of ethical and legal overlaps. It remains a wonder, however, how a seasoned media practitioner could have overlooked journalistic ethics with this one.
Have you also tried AI generators recently? We’re eager to know about your experiences.
