Dr Michael Mosley, Hilary Jones and Rangan Chatterjee were featured in the fake videos
Social media scammers have been trying to capitalise on the popularity of the late Dr Michael Mosley in an effort to flog health products.
An investigation by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) discovered disturbing AI-driven ‘deepfake’ videos of Dr Mosley, Hilary Jones and Rangan Chatterjee that had surfaced on social media, reports the Telegraph.
The TV doctor, who was found dead on the Greek island of Symi in June, appeared alongside the other doctors in sham footage promoting a range of questionable items, including blood pressure and diabetes medications and hemp gummies.
John Cormack, a retired doctor, 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.”
Improvements in artificial intelligence tools over recent years have resulted in a “significant increase” in this “kind of activity”, according to deepfake expert Henry Ajder.
Deepfake videos have existed for a number of years, with recent examples including Minecraft videos of fake ‘Nigel Farage’ and ‘Sir Keir Starmer’ pranking each other in the run-up to the general election.
However, they’ve also been used for more sinister purposes, including by Russia to target unstable political environments and war-torn nations and by criminals to create “deeply violating” fake sexual images.
Taylor Swift was also subjected to a deepfake porn campaign in January, with a user on X (formerly Twitter) reportedly sharing fake pictures of the singer in sexual positions at a football match.
The incident prompted Jeff Pedowitz, the CEO of The Pedowitz Group and author of AI Revenue Architect, to call for a more “regulated” and “ethically responsible approach to AI”.
The Telegraph also highlighted a 2019 incident involving a fraudulent video of Nancy Pelosi, the former US speaker in the House of Representatives, which portrayed her as drunk.
Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, released a statement saying it would look into the recent TV doctor deepfakes. But the General Medical Council is unable to take action due to the videos being fake.
A Meta spokesman 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.”
