A German magazine has been criticised for publishing a ‘world-first interview’ with seven-time Formula One world champion Michael Schumacher that was instead generated by an AI program trained to mimic celebrities.

Mr Schumacher, 54, suffered a serious head injury while skiing off-piste in 2013 and was placed in a medically-induced coma for 250 days. The following September he returned home to Switzerland, where he continues his rehabilitation. 

In the decade since, his family have fiercely guarded his privacy – issuing only occasional updates.

Die Aktuelle, a weekly gossip magazine, ran the article as its cover story under the headline ‘The first interview’. In the story, Schumacher then supposedly answered questions about the years since his accident and how it had affected his family under the headline ‘My life has completely changed’.

‘That was a horrible time for my wife, my children and the whole family,’ it read.

Another quote said: ‘I was so badly injured that I lay for months in a kind of artificial coma, because otherwise my body couldn’t have dealt with it all. I’ve had a tough time but the hospital team has managed to bring me back to my family.’

However, the origin of the quotes appears to be the website character.ai, which has trained an AI program to respond as a variety of real and fictional characters, including Socrates, Napoleon and Mean Girls’ Regina George.

While Die Aktuelle wrote on its front page ‘it sounds deceptively real’, it was not immediately clear to readers that the source of the quotes was not Mr Schumacher himself, but a chatbot.

Under the story headline, it billed the interview as the Formula One sensation’s first since his life-changing accident, but then asked ‘is that really our Schumi who is speaking?’.

Further down the article, it said: ‘There are actually internet sites where you can have conversations with celebrities. But artificial intelligence provides the answers. But how does this AI know the personal background? About marriage, children and illnesses? Someone must have entered the information on the internet, like in Wikipedia.

‘Was it really Schumi himself who typed in the information from the hospital bed? Or someone from the family, carers or employees? In any case, the answers sound deceptively real! To be too good to be true?’

The article was first highlighted by Über Medien. Its founder Boris Rosencrantz wrote: ‘Die Aktuelle constantly strives to give the impression that it is actually a conversation with Michael Schumacher: “Here it is – the incredible interview!” it says in the text – “with redeeming answers to the most burning questions the whole world has been asking for so long”.’

It is not the first time Die Aktuelle has been accused of misleading readers over a Schumacher storyline.

In November 2014 it printed a photo of him above the headline ‘He sits in the Sun!’, leading readers to believe it was a current photo of the recovering athlete. However, the image was originally taken in January 2013.

Mr Schumacher’s family has not commented on the latest article.

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