Magazine generates fake AI interview with One Piece actor Mackenyu

As was recently spotted by Kotaku, Esquire Singapore published a feature in March all about live-action One Piece actor Mackenyu Arata called “Mackenyu in Resonance.” It includes what writer Joy Ling calls “an unprecedented interview for both parties,” which isn’t so much an interview as it is a transcript from an AI chat bot masquerading as Mackenyu.

“We were stoked to have some face time with the Japanese-American actor, but his schedule prevented it,” the story reads. “We had the photospread, but nothing directly uttered by the 29-year-old. With a driving need for a feature, we had to be inventive. Harnessing our creative license, we pulled his [responses] verbatim from previous interviews and fed them through an AI programme to formulate new responses.”

The “interview” is a bizarre read, and was produced using Claude and Copilot. Esquire asks about the actor’s experience becoming a father, how he deals with “disillusionment” (not in regard to a particular part of his life, just… disillusionment in general, I guess?), and even gets into his memories of his late father, Sonny Chiba. The AI responds with the sort of unsubstantial meandering you might expect, though at one point it does type “(laughs)” so you know it’s in a good mood.

Readers and writers are not pleased with the piece. “This makes me so angry,” wrote New York Times-published journalist Nicole Clark on Bluesky. “In what world is any of this appropriate or justifiable? And even with ‘disclaimers’ everything else about the piece looks like a typical interview. It’s the equivalent of using ad space to publish misinformation.”

“That’s not an interview; it’s fan fic dialogue,” posted Bluesky user Nona Jabiznez. A reply from user Maggie Sharp reads, “Fan ficcers write their own stuff and if they don’t they’re hunted for sport.”

It feels like the golden age of the AI-operated sock puppet, considering this Esquire piece and the AI clones of real journalists recently in use by companies like Grammarly.