I didn’t find any English articles about this, so here’s a summary what happened:
- Mario Voigt, the minister-president (head of a German state government) of Thuringia, published an op-ed in the German conservative newspaper “Welt”, that sounded suspiciously like AI slop, so journalists started investigating
- They found out that the Welt op-ed, another op-ed in “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) and several speeches he gave (including a speech for a Holocaust memorial) were completely AI generated
- The FAZ op-ed contained quotes of three scientists that were completely made up. After Voigt was confronted by the newspaper, his office just replied with “AI is the future” bullshit instead of answering the questions, so the newspaper withdrew the op-ed and published a statement (also only in German: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien-und-film/medienpolitik/zum-ki-verdacht-bei-gastbeitrag-von-mario-voigt-200917046.html)
In the aftermath, some people looked closer at the speeches and texts of other politicians and journalists:
- Karsten Wildberger, federal minister for digital affairs, was also caught using AI for speeches and op-eds (https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/texte-von-digitalminister-wildberger-mit-hilfe-von-ki-erstellt,VMSAk1S)
- Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, editor-at-large at the newspaper “Tagesspiegel”, was barred from publishing texts in the paper after he was caught using AI (https://www.tagesspiegel.de/in-eigener-sache-editor-at-large-muss-publizistische-aufgaben-vorerst-ruhen-lassen-15708436.html)
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Glad we still have some different kind of people around. For example we had some comedian also give a remembrance speech for the victims of the Nazis, and that one was well written and filled with personal connections to the past. And now people think he’s more fit to become the next federal president than any of the ex politicians 😆