Schumacher family planning legal action over AI ‘interview’ with F1 great
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/20/schumacher-family-planning-legal-action-over-ai-interview-with-f1-great
> Michael Schumacher’s family are planning legal action against a German weekly magazine over an “interview” with the seven times Formula One champion that was generated by artificial intelligence.
Who the fuck thought this is a good idea?
It does bring up an interesting question about privacy: can stuff made up by a piece of software violate somebody's privacy?
My hot-take of an answer is: yes, probably, depending on the context it's used in. For example, in this context, and even though no specific private information was shared, it really feels like a massive invasion of privacy.
And it's literally taking away agency from Schumacher and his family. Normally you can turn down an interview request. Not here.
Does slander violate the target's privacy? I would say no, that it's a different kind of harm of social nature.
@robryk can there be slander if there is nothing explicitly negative about the subject?
Somewhat nitpicky answer: yes, if it has negative social consequences for the target (imagine very sarcastic praise).
I'm curious about your opinion on whether slander can be considered a privacy issue, because I think that the source of harm here is more similar to source of harm in slander than in privacy violations (not just typical privacy violations, but the way I'd delineate privacy violations).
@rysiek Yup. I think that trying to put it into those categories harms the future ability to speak precisely, which I value perhaps more highly than people do on median.
@rysiek I also wonder how much the existence of harm depends here on the way society is structured.
For example, I can't imagine a society where gaslighting is not harmful to humans (and maybe even to ~any entity that's curious). Any specific kind of slander is very society-specific (it needs to actually harm one's reputation to _be_ slander). Various ostracism-adjacent actions are harmful in some societies, but nearly neutral in others.
Curiously, I find it easier to find examples of things that are not harmful in the society I live in but are harmful in some society I just read about than v.v.
@robryk I think the crux here is that there is definitely harm, and that it does not fit nicely into the categories of harm we already have.