Popular YouTuber MrBeast has called out ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok for allowing a deep fake version of his hawk $2 iPhones, calling it a “serious problem”. The viral video which has now been taken down shows a deepfake version of him promoting the “world’s largest iPhone 15 giveaway”.
TikTok ran an advertisement showing an AI-generated deepfake version of MrBeast announcing a giveaway of 10,000 iPhone 15 Pros for $2 each. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) launched the iPhone 15 Pro in September.
“Lots of people are getting this deepfake scam ad of me… are social media platforms ready to handle the rise of AI deepfakes?” MrBeast said in a post, calling out TikTok.
“This is a serious problem,” he said in a post, joining a list of celebrities who have been hit by deepfakes making the rounds on social media.
MrBeast’s deep fake on TikTok shows him telling users that he is organizing the “world’s largest iPhone 15 giveaway”. The video went viral on TikTok, especially since MrBeast is known for giveaways and contests.
However, not everyone was as easily fooled. “Only boomers would fall for this s***,” one user said in the comments.
Despite the ad carrying MrBeast’s official logo and a blue check mark, telltale signs of AI manipulation were apparent, including distorted voice and unnatural mouth movements.
A TikTok spokesperson stated that the ad was removed a few hours after posting and the associated account was taken down for policy violations, reported Business Insider.
TikTok has recently released a tool to aid creators in labeling AI content and is testing ways to label such content automatically.
There has been a spurt in deepfakes of popular celebrities going viral – the credit for the increasing pace of these deepfakes also goes to the recent advancements in AI.
Earlier this week, Tom Hanks posted a statement on Instagram calling out a deepfake version of him promoting a dental plan. He warned his followers that he has “nothing to do with it”.
Robin Williams’ daughter Zelda also called out AI recreations of her father’s voice as “personally disturbing” and a “horrendous Frankensteinian monster” in an Instagram story.
British actor Stephen Fry is also a victim of AI being misused. He said his voice was stolen from Harry Potter books and warned that this is just the beginning of AI deep fakes being misused to say things that were never said before by the victims.
While companies, such as Alphabet Inc-owned (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google, are working on solutions like SynthID to detect AI-generated images, it will take some time before similar solutions for audio and video are also made. For now, users will have to stick to common sense and fact-check them.
Produced in association with Benzinga
