Dr Michael Mosley has been “deepfaked” to promote health scams just weeks after his tragic death.
A British Medical Journal (BMJ) investigation has uncovered alarmingly realistic AI-created ‘deepfake’ videos on social media featuring Dr Mosley, Dr Hilary Jones, and Dr Rangan Chatterjee.
Dr Mosley, whose untimely death occurred on the Greek island of Symi in June, was deceptively shown in fake footage promoting dubious goods such as blood pressure and diabetes drugs and hemp gummies.
Commenting on the sick scam, retired doctor John Cormack said: “The bottom line is, it’s much cheaper to spend your cash on making videos than it is on doing research and coming up with new products and getting them to market in the conventional way.”
Deepfake specialist Henry Ajder noted that advances in artificial intelligence have led to a “significant increase” in these fraudulent videos.
While deepfake videos have been surfacing for some years, recent examples include comical Minecraft clips of fabricated ‘Nigel Farage’ and ‘Sir Keir Starmer’ goofing around before the general election.
Yet, their use has also taken a dark turn as Russia employed them to destabilise volatile political environments and conflict-ridden countries.
Taylor Swift became the target of a vile deepfake porn campaign in January, with reports of a user on X (formerly known as Twitter) sharing fabricated images of the pop icon in explicit poses during a football game.
Jeff Pedowitz, CEO of The Pedowitz Group and author of AI Revenue Architect, has called for tighter regulation and a more “ethically responsible approach to AI” following the incident.
The Telegraph also highlighted a 2019 scandal involving a doctored video of Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker of the House, which falsely depicted her as intoxicated.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has issued a statement committing to investigate the recent spate of TV doctor deepfakes. However, the General Medical Council’s hands are tied in taking action due to the fake nature of the videos.
A spokesperson for Meta said: “We don’t permit content that intentionally deceives or seeks to defraud others, and we’re constantly working to improve detection and enforcement.”
“We encourage anyone who sees content that might violate our policies to report it so we can investigate and take action.”