Editor in chief of German magazine which ran AI interview with Michael Schumacher fired

The editor in chief of a German magazine which ran an AI-generated interview with F1 legend Michael Schumacher has been fired.

The New York Times notes that Die Aktuelle editor in chief Anne Hoffmann has been fired by the magazine’s publisher, the Funke Media Group. Last week, Schumacher’s family announced they would be taking legal action against the magazine after the AI interview was published.

In a statement, Funke called the article “vulgar and misleading.”

“This vulgar and misleading article should have never been published,” Funke Media Group’s managing director, Bianca Pohlmann, said in an emailed statement, adding that it did not meet the company’s journalistic standards “in any shape or form that we and our readers expect from a publisher like Funke.”

Funke announced Hoffmann’s dismissal on Friday, and also apologized to Schumacher’s family.

Schumacher retired twice from racing, after the 2006 and 2012 F1 seasons. In December of 2013, he suffered a head injury in a skiing accident, and his family has fiercely protected his privacy in the near decade since.

[New York Times, Funke Media]