A German magazine editor-in-chief was fired after faking a Schumacher interview with artificial inte

Germany's Funk Media Group has fired the editor-in-chief of its magazine "Current Affairs". The magazine recently used artificial intelligence (AI) to fake an interview with famous German driver Michael Schumacher.

According to Reuters, Bianca Polman, managing director of Funk Media Group, issued an apology on the 22nd, saying: "This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared. It definitely does not meet the journalistic standards that we and our readers expect from a publisher like Funk."

Bormann said Anne Huffman, editor-in-chief of Current Affairs since 2009, was "relieved of her duties with immediate effect."

The latest issue of Current Affairs, which specializes in German celebrity gossip, ran a photo of the 54-year-old Schumacher smiling on its cover last weekend with the headline "Michael Schumacher, first interview! " headline, but a smaller print subhead noted, "Sounds like it could pass for real." On the inside of the magazine, the outlet admits that the so-called Schumacher "quotes" were all generated using artificial intelligence.

According to DPA, the so-called "interview" misleadingly implies that Schumacher disclosed details about his physical recovery. The use of artificial intelligence to fake interviews with people has sparked an outcry in Germany and a debate about the risks of artificial intelligence.

Schumacher suffered a serious brain injury in a skiing accident in December 2013 that nearly killed him. He has not been seen in public since, and before retiring in 2012, Schumacher had won seven Formula 1 championships annually.

Schumacher's family has kept the status of his health strictly confidential, and on the 20th had told the Associated Press that they intended to sue Current Affairs magazine.