“Dangerous” fake Tom Hanks diabetes ad
Artificial intelligence at a low point
Fred Trotter is an established health care data journalist working at the intersection of Health IT and CyberSecurity. He has gone on YouTube to reveal that YouTube continues to display a “deep fake ad” supposedly showing actor Tom Hanks giving dangerous advice to people with Type 2 diabetes. The ad suggests that people could stop taking proven drugs like metformin or insulin injections and stop using restrictive diets. Trotter is disturbed that YouTube still allows this - months after being told by Hanks that it’s a fake. Click on the video below.
Hanks has talked openly about having Type 2 diabetes after being diagnosed nearly a dozen years ago.
In the video, Trotter shows a note that Hanks wrote discrediting this video.
The following video tells more about this caper, about another fake ad attributed to Hanks, and about artificial intelligence being used to promote fake promotions from other celebrities.
Trotter says if you watch closely you can see how the video has been altered - jerky hand motions repeating in a loop and lip movements not matching the audio. But he warns that the AI technology will continue to improve and will make it much more difficult in the future for the general public to discern what’s true and what’s fake.
Really important and interesting. Thank you. With RFKjr now at the helm, we will see more sham studies, more unregulated snake oil, more fakes than ever before.