Dubai Telegraph - Beware 'deepfakes' of famous doctors promoting scams: experts

EUR -
AED 3.879921
AFN 70.774705
ALL 97.658441
AMD 409.488241
ANG 1.905213
AOA 963.376768
ARS 1054.320885
AUD 1.627536
AWG 1.901401
AZN 1.801486
BAM 1.943481
BBD 2.134372
BDT 126.319293
BGN 1.9558
BHD 0.398119
BIF 3061.256379
BMD 1.056334
BND 1.412811
BOB 7.304697
BRL 6.133815
BSD 1.057139
BTN 89.15023
BWP 14.343757
BYN 3.459372
BYR 20704.14942
BZD 2.130774
CAD 1.478319
CDF 3026.39715
CHF 0.935785
CLF 0.037514
CLP 1035.112444
CNY 7.631383
CNH 7.652882
COP 4731.320676
CRC 539.798787
CUC 1.056334
CUP 27.992855
CVE 110.756993
CZK 25.285045
DJF 187.73139
DKK 7.458754
DOP 63.776161
DZD 141.547711
EGP 52.10252
ERN 15.845012
ETB 128.925753
FJD 2.399199
FKP 0.831283
GBP 0.831356
GEL 2.884081
GGP 0.831283
GHS 17.012698
GIP 0.831283
GMD 74.999517
GNF 9116.163919
GTQ 8.168224
GYD 221.158132
HKD 8.219706
HNL 26.472039
HRK 7.535367
HTG 138.99552
HUF 407.89813
IDR 16738.565373
ILS 3.965716
IMP 0.831283
INR 89.179585
IQD 1384.325909
IRR 44463.742746
ISK 147.284729
JEP 0.831283
JMD 167.357086
JOD 0.749047
JPY 164.334965
KES 136.790508
KGS 91.061436
KHR 4278.153377
KMF 492.621303
KPW 950.700505
KRW 1481.899804
KWD 0.324971
KYD 0.880916
KZT 521.017397
LAK 23181.253406
LBP 94594.723681
LKR 308.961568
LRD 194.36531
LSL 19.278261
LTL 3.11908
LVL 0.638966
LYD 5.144042
MAD 10.518957
MDL 19.048258
MGA 4917.235703
MKD 61.531456
MMK 3430.932127
MNT 3589.423527
MOP 8.469315
MRU 42.121293
MUR 49.531301
MVR 16.320345
MWK 1833.795702
MXN 21.69129
MYR 4.711444
MZN 67.498546
NAD 19.277515
NGN 1771.95785
NIO 38.851914
NOK 11.767666
NPR 142.642227
NZD 1.796592
OMR 0.406667
PAB 1.057099
PEN 4.016129
PGK 4.156411
PHP 62.152628
PKR 293.713639
PLN 4.341243
PYG 8250.095155
QAR 3.845638
RON 4.975967
RSD 116.975311
RUB 104.047459
RWF 1441.89612
SAR 3.969228
SBD 8.855836
SCR 14.40717
SDG 635.387436
SEK 11.603515
SGD 1.418836
SHP 0.831283
SLE 24.100276
SLL 22150.800682
SOS 603.695541
SRD 37.267363
STD 21863.98426
SVC 9.24937
SYP 2654.071001
SZL 19.278362
THB 36.91096
TJS 11.263007
TMT 3.707733
TND 3.32481
TOP 2.474044
TRY 36.2854
TTD 7.183466
TWD 34.278574
TZS 2809.848602
UAH 43.672836
UGX 3879.409365
USD 1.056334
UYU 44.567497
UZS 13547.485199
VES 47.531547
VND 26772.789136
VUV 125.410144
WST 2.954552
XAF 651.855898
XAG 0.034887
XAU 0.000411
XCD 2.854796
XDR 0.796378
XOF 651.239726
XPF 119.331742
YER 263.875515
ZAR 19.259818
ZMK 9508.281216
ZMW 28.91707
ZWL 340.139167
  • RBGPF

    -0.8500

    59.34

    -1.43%

  • CMSC

    0.0700

    24.61

    +0.28%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.24

    +0.15%

  • BCC

    1.4200

    142.55

    +1%

  • SCS

    -0.3000

    13.37

    -2.24%

  • RELX

    -0.4700

    46.12

    -1.02%

  • NGG

    -0.7800

    62.12

    -1.26%

  • BCE

    -0.4800

    27.21

    -1.76%

  • AZN

    0.1000

    65.29

    +0.15%

  • CMSD

    -0.0200

    24.73

    -0.08%

  • RIO

    -0.5800

    60.62

    -0.96%

  • GSK

    -0.4100

    35.11

    -1.17%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0500

    7.11

    -0.7%

  • BTI

    0.1800

    35.42

    +0.51%

  • VOD

    0.2800

    8.75

    +3.2%

  • BP

    0.4100

    28.57

    +1.44%

Beware 'deepfakes' of famous doctors promoting scams: experts
Beware 'deepfakes' of famous doctors promoting scams: experts / Photo: HANNAH MCKAY - POOL/AFP/File

Beware 'deepfakes' of famous doctors promoting scams: experts

Social media is being flooded by digitally created "deepfake" videos using the trusted identities of famous doctors to promote dangerous miracle cures for serious health problems, experts warn.

Text size:

Videos on Facebook and Instagram have taken advantage of the credibility of star TV doctors to advertise untested "natural" syrups for diabetes, even claiming that the proven, first-line drug metformin "could kill" patients.

These scams risk endangering lives, experts said, particularly because they deploy the likenesses of popular health experts such as British TV presenter Michael Mosley, who died earlier this year.

"People do seem to trust these videos," British doctor John Cormack told AFP.

"A lot of these media doctors have spent a great deal of time creating an image of trustworthiness, so they are believed even when they make incredible claims," said Cormack, who has worked with the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on the subject.

Artificial intelligence (AI) expert Henry Ajder said that doctor deepfakes "really took off this year".

The AI videos typically target older audiences by faking the identity of doctors who appear regularly on daytime television, Ajder said.

French doctor Michel Cymes, who often appears on TV in France, told AFP in May that he was taking legal action against Facebook owner Meta about "scams" using his image.

British doctor Hilary Jones even hired an investigator to track deepfakes that featured his likeness.

One video depicted Jones selling a false cure for high blood pressure -- as well as weed gummies -- on a UK TV show on which he regularly appears.

"Even if they're taken down, they just pop up the next day under a different name," Jones lamented in the BMJ.

- 'Game of cat and mouse' -

Recent advances in AI have made the quality of deepfake images, audio and video far more convincing, explained French academic and AI expert Frederic Jurie.

"Today we have access to tens of billions of images, and we are able to build algorithms that can model everything that appears in the images and regenerate them. This is what we call generative AI," he said.

It is not just the likenesses of widely respected doctors being misused.

The appearance of controversial French researcher Didier Raoult -- who has been accused of spreading misleading information about Covid drugs -- has also been used in several deepfake videos.

Australian naturopath Barbara O'Neill, who has been roundly condemned for claiming that baking soda can cure cancer, has been falsely depicted selling pills that "clean blood vessels" in TikTok videos.

Contacted by AFP, her husband Michael O'Neill deplored that "a lot of unethical people" were using his wife's name "to sell products that she does not recommend, and in some cases they are just outright scams".

Some fake videos spiral even further down the rabbit hole, falsely claiming that O'Neill died from a miracle oil sold on Amazon.

AI expert Adjer was not surprised that such controversial health figures were also falling victim to deepfakes.

"They are highly trusted by people in circles that, let's say, are unorthodox or conspiratorial," he said.

The experts were not optimistic that newly developed AI detection tools were capable of fighting back against the onslaught of deepfakes.

"It's a game of cat and mouse," Jurie said.

Rather than trying to find all the fake videos out there, he pointed to technology that can "guarantee that content has not been altered, such as for messaging, thanks to software that produces digital signatures like a certificate", he said.

G.Gopinath--DT