Michael Mosley is among a number of TV doctors who have been “deepfaked” on social media to promote health scams, an investigation has claimed. Mr Mosley and other doctors, including Hilary Jones and Rangan Chatterjee, are being used to promote products which claim to fix high blood pressure and diabetes, as well as to sell hemp gummies, according to the British Medical Journal. “Deepfaking” is the use of artificial intelligence to map the digital likeness of a person’s face and place it on a body that isn’t their own to create videos.
In a report on Wednesday the BMJ, revealed one video, posted on Facebook, had been created of Dr Hilary Jones promoting a drug purported to be a cure for high blood pressure while on the Lorraine programme. The BMJ said it has uncovered more videos of this nature although it did not specify how many the investigation found. Henry Ajder, an expert on deepfake technology, told the publication: “Over the past year we’ve seen huge growth in this form of deepfake fraud, particularly on YouTube and X.
Many are selling fraudulent cryptocurrencies, investment schemes, or medical products, with varying degrees of sophistication.” Dr Jones employs a social media specialist to trawl the web for videos that misrepresent his views and tries to take them down. “Even if you do, they just pop up the next day under a different name,” he said.
Spotting deepfakes can be tricky too, said Mr Ajder, as the technology has improved. He added: “.
