Tom Hanks, MrBeast and other celebrities warn over AI deep fake scams

Instances of celebrities and public figures AI deep fakes continue to surface, with their likeness circulating the web promoting scams or products.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a major talking point in Hollywood throughout 2023 and continues to be so as multiple celebrities have come forth denouncing the use of the likeness in AI deep fakes.

Actor Tom Hanks, YouTube personality MrBeast and American broadcast journalist Gayle King have all recently tried to put an end to deep fakes of themselves.

Hanks was the first of the three to identify the AI deep fake of himself after he posted a screenshot of the video on his Instagram page on Oct. 1, saying “beware” and that he had nothing to do with it.

The AI version of Hanks was created to promote what he called “some dental plan.”

A day later, on Oct. 2, King posted a similar video on her Instagram. An AI deep fake of her surfaced, which used a video she recently made to promote her radio show.

The fake also promoted a product the journalist said she neither knew of nor endorsed. She wrote, “…they’ve manipulated my voice and video to make it seem like I’m promoting it” and warned her community “not to be fooled.”

King received many comments in her support and voicing concerns over the “scariness” of AI deep fakes.

On Oct. 3, YouTube personality James Donaldson, known as MrBeast, took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to denounce an AI-generated deep fake of himself. In this instance, MrBeast is seen promoting a scam for winning an iPhone 15 pro.

The YouTube personality’s posts made a plea to social media platforms, saying: “Are social media platforms ready to handle the rise of AI deep fakes? This is a serious problem.”

Lots of people are getting this deepfake scam ad of me… are social media platforms ready to handle the rise of AI deepfakes? This is a serious problem pic.twitter.com/llkhxswQSw

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) October 3, 2023

One X user commented on MrBeast’s post, saying they had received the ad on their TikTok, while another also raised concerns over the widespread emergence of AI deep fakes.

While there has been no official legislation created or implemented regarding AI deep fakes in the United States, lawmakers are considering regulating political deep fakes in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

However, Hollywood entertainment studios and actors have been negotiating the use of AI in future productions. Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have included AI as an issue in their strike, which has been ongoing since the summer.

The proposal from studios suggested that background performers should be scanned, receiving only a single day’s worth of pay, and then hand over complete ownership of the scan, image and likeness to the companies.

Meanwhile, the Writer’s Guild strike has finally ended, with negotiated terms for AI use in written material in the entertainment industry.

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