5 ms·

Michael Schumacher's family take legal action over AI-generated interview

76 points by ignoramous 4y ago

superkuh 4y ago
There's going to be a lot of these frivolous lawsuits as lawyers try to extract cash from the ignorant and gullible before people understand what deep fakes are. I only hope that the judges in these cases are technically informed enough to not set stupid case precedent.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  In which world should fabricating an interview with someone be anything other than fraud and potentially libel? The stupid precedent is "you can say that anyone said anything (even damaging things to them) without facing any consequences".
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - PurpleRamen 4y ago
    It would only be fraud if they claim it was real. But those magazines are masters in deceiving their lazy readers. They likely mentioned somewhere that it's not real, to avoid the law.
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    > In which world should fabricating an interview with someone be anything other than fraud and potentially libel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
- tokai 4y ago
  This doesn't have anything to do with deep fakes.
  - superkuh 4y ago
    [flagged]
- itake 4y ago
  My understanding is the article says it’s an interview with him, but it’s not an interview with him… If you’re saying that AI can represent real humans, then than is a whole can of worms that society can’t support.
- deepsun 4y ago
  Sounds similar to crypto-talk: "but you don't understand, it's based on blockchain". It doesn't matter what technology is used, but what action is done.
- seanhunter 4y ago
  This has got nothing to do with the technology. If you sell an "interview with Michael Schumacher" but it's actually your buddy in a boiler suit instead, you have probably committed a fraud. The tech here is just enabling the fraud to be more convincing.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    > The tech here is just enabling the fraud to be more convincing. So it does have to do with the technology?
    - seanhunter 4y ago
      I'm saying the tech is not germane to the question of whether or not this was deceptive or illegal, the tech amplifies the effect.
soco 4y ago
There's nothing "AI specific" in this, it's just shady journalists making up stuff to lure readers.
- tyingq 4y ago
  I agree that it's mostly the same problem...presenting something that wasn't an interview with him as being an interview with him, regardless of how it was done. But other sources do mention they used Character.ai to generate the interview answers.
- SiempreViernes 4y ago
  Not the technology itself maybe, but it does seems relevant to state of the business environment to point out this fraud was performed largely by using a service created for practically this use case. Sure, they could have made up the interview from scratch, but this company obviously provided at least a valuable facilitation, and arguably the AI hype is the reason anyone bothered with executing the idea in the first place. Character.ai claiming they didn't want this sort of stuff is like early youtube insisting they didn't want people to upload clips from the Simpsons.
Imnimo 4y ago
I don't think the AI part really matters here. If the magazine had instead just written his answers themselves, would the legal questions be any different? As I understand it, what they did was go to an online chatbot (probably character.ai), conduct the fake interview, publish it with a headline and cover that suggested it was real, and then admit only at the end of the article that it was from an AI website. Presumably, the AI in question was just a generic LLM prompted to act like Schumacher - I would be surprised if it were specially trained on his words or anything. It feels like the only legal question is whether it was fraudulent to portray the interview as real, or whether the admission at the end is sufficient cover. I don't think this case would give us any real insight into the legal issues surrounding AI in particular.
- jansan 4y ago
  It probably wasn't AI at all. That magazine has just about 25,000 subscribers, so you can guess the quality of their journalism. Out of their authors most likelike just made it up and put the "AI" label on it to make it "more exciting".
  - matteason 4y ago
    The BBC News report (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65333115 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65333115) says that it was character.ai. They don't say how they know that though (presumably it's disclosed in the magazine itself?)
    - schroeding 4y ago
      > presumably it's disclosed in the magazine itself? Yes, indirectly, they have screenshots of the answers with a blue "c.ai" box in them.
  - mseepgood 4y ago
    Wouldn't an AI generated interview be cheaper than paying an author to make one up?
expertentipp 4y ago
How much money one has to spent, how large must be entourage of lawyers and lobbyists to achieve this level of aggressive privacy? The other example is Schwartz family of Lidl and Kaufland, and probably countless industrialists and aristocrats living in DACH countries. You mention them and wait for cease and desist letter in your mailbox, that's how they maintain their crystal clear image or no image at all.
- corbulo 4y ago
  Sounds like a much better strategy than annoying us all with media adulation. Maybe there are some positives to going that length for the sake of privacy.
  - expertentipp 4y ago
    If he was healthy don't worry, we would see his face on every billboard, newspaper, TV ad, and other formats advertising caffeine drinks, car brands, electronics, watches or whatnot. We'd all forcefully learn about his new lover, yacht, or car. But well things went south... "now I'm not a celebrity!".
- mountainb 4y ago
  Not that much actually and it does not cost that much especially when there really has been a misuse of likeness. The same crawlers that make search work make it easier to uncover potential likeness and trademark misuse.
hoofhearted 4y ago
In my opinion with the recent Ice Spice song and AI generated Drake, I feel like an artists voice and likeness should be covered by copyright laws. It’s kind of absurd that someone could make a song with someone else’s voice, and not pay royalties of any sort. David Guetta released a song a few months ago with an AI sample, so he may be the pioneer of this new era. He said he used an online text generator to create an Eminem rap verse. He then copied the text and pasted into another website to generate Eminem’s voice. He said he did it to just mess around with AI and being creative, but he didn’t agree that it should be legal for him to do that. https://youtu.be/lm-o6joqChc https://youtu.be/lm-o6joqChc
- logicchains 4y ago
  >In my opinion with the recent Ice Spice song and AI generated Drake, I feel like an artists voice and likeness should be covered by copyright laws. It’s kind of absurd that someone could make a song with someone else’s voice, and not pay royalties of any sort. It's absurd that someone could think it's fair to send men with guns to make someone pay them just for copying how they speak/sing. And unprecedented; imagine if Elvis' estate was allowed to go after every Elvis impersonator who sung non-Elvis songs in Elvis' accent!
  - hoofhearted 4y ago
    Impersonation is a bit different. I wasn’t thinking about men with guns. I was referring to the current music copyright and royalty laws that are upheld by groups like RIAA. You can legally sample another artists music, even without their permission or knowing. However, they have to be given credit, and everyone inline that was involved with the original song composition get a royalty. An example of this was Jay-z’s 99 problems. Somewhere in the 90’s, Too Short mentioned to Ice T that “he had 99 problems, but a B wasn’t one”.. Ice T thought that was slick and wrote a song. A couple years later, Rick Rubin and Jay-z borrowed that hook and put out a hit. Ice T said that he didn’t know they had recorded the song, and he only found out when he heard it on the radio. He said it was all cool though because he received writing credits, and royalty payments as a result.
- polishdude20 4y ago
tibbydudeza 4y ago
People magazine with their celeb news - is it any different ???. The Schumacher family esp his wife is very cagey of the true status of Michael today. They could have handled it better IMHO - he was a very public figure and people are naturally curious - they simply could have ended all the speculation by stating that he is no longer the person we knew as he suffers from acute brain trauma and is no longer in a condition to engage with the public.
mmvora 4y ago
It seems like someone was just bored waiting for the Baku GP

76 points by ignoramous 4y ago

There's going to be a lot of these frivolous lawsuits as lawyers try to extract cash from the ignorant and gullible before people understand what deep fakes are. I only hope that the judges in these cases are technically informed enough to not set stupid case precedent.

InitialLastName 4y ago
In which world should fabricating an interview with someone be anything other than fraud and potentially libel? The stupid precedent is "you can say that anyone said anything (even damaging things to them) without facing any consequences".
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  It would only be fraud if they claim it was real. But those magazines are masters in deceiving their lazy readers. They likely mentioned somewhere that it's not real, to avoid the law.
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  > In which world should fabricating an interview with someone be anything other than fraud and potentially libel? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustler_Magazine_v._Falwell
tokai 4y ago
This doesn't have anything to do with deep fakes.
- superkuh 4y ago
  [flagged]
itake 4y ago
My understanding is the article says it’s an interview with him, but it’s not an interview with him… If you’re saying that AI can represent real humans, then than is a whole can of worms that society can’t support.
deepsun 4y ago
Sounds similar to crypto-talk: "but you don't understand, it's based on blockchain". It doesn't matter what technology is used, but what action is done.
seanhunter 4y ago
This has got nothing to do with the technology. If you sell an "interview with Michael Schumacher" but it's actually your buddy in a boiler suit instead, you have probably committed a fraud. The tech here is just enabling the fraud to be more convincing.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > The tech here is just enabling the fraud to be more convincing. So it does have to do with the technology?
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    I'm saying the tech is not germane to the question of whether or not this was deceptive or illegal, the tech amplifies the effect.

soco 4y ago

There's nothing "AI specific" in this, it's just shady journalists making up stuff to lure readers.

tyingq 4y ago
I agree that it's mostly the same problem...presenting something that wasn't an interview with him as being an interview with him, regardless of how it was done. But other sources do mention they used Character.ai to generate the interview answers.
SiempreViernes 4y ago
Not the technology itself maybe, but it does seems relevant to state of the business environment to point out this fraud was performed largely by using a service created for practically this use case. Sure, they could have made up the interview from scratch, but this company obviously provided at least a valuable facilitation, and arguably the AI hype is the reason anyone bothered with executing the idea in the first place. Character.ai claiming they didn't want this sort of stuff is like early youtube insisting they didn't want people to upload clips from the Simpsons.

Imnimo 4y ago

I don't think the AI part really matters here. If the magazine had instead just written his answers themselves, would the legal questions be any different? As I understand it, what they did was go to an online chatbot (probably character.ai), conduct the fake interview, publish it with a headline and cover that suggested it was real, and then admit only at the end of the article that it was from an AI website. Presumably, the AI in question was just a generic LLM prompted to act like Schumacher - I would be surprised if it were specially trained on his words or anything. It feels like the only legal question is whether it was fraudulent to portray the interview as real, or whether the admission at the end is sufficient cover. I don't think this case would give us any real insight into the legal issues surrounding AI in particular.

jansan 4y ago
It probably wasn't AI at all. That magazine has just about 25,000 subscribers, so you can guess the quality of their journalism. Out of their authors most likelike just made it up and put the "AI" label on it to make it "more exciting".
- matteason 4y ago
  The BBC News report (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65333115 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/65333115) says that it was character.ai. They don't say how they know that though (presumably it's disclosed in the magazine itself?)
  - schroeding 4y ago
    > presumably it's disclosed in the magazine itself? Yes, indirectly, they have screenshots of the answers with a blue "c.ai" box in them.
- mseepgood 4y ago
  Wouldn't an AI generated interview be cheaper than paying an author to make one up?

expertentipp 4y ago

How much money one has to spent, how large must be entourage of lawyers and lobbyists to achieve this level of aggressive privacy? The other example is Schwartz family of Lidl and Kaufland, and probably countless industrialists and aristocrats living in DACH countries. You mention them and wait for cease and desist letter in your mailbox, that's how they maintain their crystal clear image or no image at all.

corbulo 4y ago
Sounds like a much better strategy than annoying us all with media adulation. Maybe there are some positives to going that length for the sake of privacy.
- expertentipp 4y ago
  If he was healthy don't worry, we would see his face on every billboard, newspaper, TV ad, and other formats advertising caffeine drinks, car brands, electronics, watches or whatnot. We'd all forcefully learn about his new lover, yacht, or car. But well things went south... "now I'm not a celebrity!".
mountainb 4y ago
Not that much actually and it does not cost that much especially when there really has been a misuse of likeness. The same crawlers that make search work make it easier to uncover potential likeness and trademark misuse.

hoofhearted 4y ago

In my opinion with the recent Ice Spice song and AI generated Drake, I feel like an artists voice and likeness should be covered by copyright laws. It’s kind of absurd that someone could make a song with someone else’s voice, and not pay royalties of any sort. David Guetta released a song a few months ago with an AI sample, so he may be the pioneer of this new era. He said he used an online text generator to create an Eminem rap verse. He then copied the text and pasted into another website to generate Eminem’s voice. He said he did it to just mess around with AI and being creative, but he didn’t agree that it should be legal for him to do that. https://youtu.be/lm-o6joqChc https://youtu.be/lm-o6joqChc

logicchains 4y ago
>In my opinion with the recent Ice Spice song and AI generated Drake, I feel like an artists voice and likeness should be covered by copyright laws. It’s kind of absurd that someone could make a song with someone else’s voice, and not pay royalties of any sort. It's absurd that someone could think it's fair to send men with guns to make someone pay them just for copying how they speak/sing. And unprecedented; imagine if Elvis' estate was allowed to go after every Elvis impersonator who sung non-Elvis songs in Elvis' accent!
- hoofhearted 4y ago
  Impersonation is a bit different. I wasn’t thinking about men with guns. I was referring to the current music copyright and royalty laws that are upheld by groups like RIAA. You can legally sample another artists music, even without their permission or knowing. However, they have to be given credit, and everyone inline that was involved with the original song composition get a royalty. An example of this was Jay-z’s 99 problems. Somewhere in the 90’s, Too Short mentioned to Ice T that “he had 99 problems, but a B wasn’t one”.. Ice T thought that was slick and wrote a song. A couple years later, Rick Rubin and Jay-z borrowed that hook and put out a hit. Ice T said that he didn’t know they had recorded the song, and he only found out when he heard it on the radio. He said it was all cool though because he received writing credits, and royalty payments as a result.
polishdude20 4y ago

tibbydudeza 4y ago

People magazine with their celeb news - is it any different ???. The Schumacher family esp his wife is very cagey of the true status of Michael today. They could have handled it better IMHO - he was a very public figure and people are naturally curious - they simply could have ended all the speculation by stating that he is no longer the person we knew as he suffers from acute brain trauma and is no longer in a condition to engage with the public.

mmvora 4y ago

It seems like someone was just bored waiting for the Baku GP