A deepfake video of Martin Lewis endorsing a new Elon Musk project has surfaced, sparking concern about the immoral uses of artificial intelligence.
Surfacing on Facebook, the scam video saw an AI-generated Lewis call a fake Musk project “legit” and a “great investment”.
The consumer finance advisor said the video, which imitated his voice and face, was “weird and pretty frightening”.
@MartinSLewis assuming this is a scam.. getting more convincing with the use of AI pic.twitter.com/spDIVWxVLU
— Daniel Handford (@t0uchscreenguru) July 6, 2023
Speaking to BBC Radio Four, Lewis said: “My name and face have been the subject of scam adverts for many years, I get countless reports every day.
"I've had friends of mine get in touch with me at times saying 'Hey, I've just put some money in that investment scheme you're advertising'.
"I don't advertise, I don't do investment.”
Deepfakes are artificially generated videos or images that can replicate a person’s likeness to a point where it is very difficult for an unknowing viewer to tell its fake.
Many have been used to recreate politicians, bosses of big corporations and movie actors.
In 2023, 500,000 pieces of deepfake content are expected to end up on the internet, according to DeepMedia.
Concerns about the negative uses of AI have come to the forefront in recent months following a boom in the technology since ChatGPT’s launch in November.
Earlier this month, it was found that an increasing number of adverts were ending up on spoof AI websites without companies knowing.
AI has also made way for a surge in fraud, with criminals using machine learning to scale up and improve their scams.