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Fake AI-generated doctors and health gurus have taken over Facebook and Instagram, sharing unproven medical advice and peddling dubious supplements.
A recent New York Times investigation into the phenomenon reviewed hundreds of these ads, finding that they tend to follow a loose formula to draw people in.
The AI videos usually feature AI avatars that present themselves as credible figures like doctors or Eastern medical gurus. Many prominently feature American flags or are set in familiar suburban settings.
Some of the AI avatars are made to look like average people who’re really enthusiastic about the supplement they’re taking, filming themselves in a parking lot, bedroom, or grocery store — not unlike human influencers. The doctor avatars, meanwhile, might be in an office, where their fake diplomas are clearly on display. (One bears the incredible text “University of Degree” in a video identified by the NYT.)
“In Chinese medicine, we have known exactly how to bring this down for generations,” says one AI-generated Asian grandma dressed in a labcoat highlighted in the investigation.
Many of the claims these videos make are misleading and outright dangerous. One advertising a product called “Sculptique” asserts that taking its herbal supplement treats kidney disease better than medication. The company claims it gave 100 people with stage three kidney disease its supplement, showing an AI-generated video of these fake recipients raising their supplement bottles together in a warehouse.
A 71-year-old named Pamela Wundrow told the NYT that she bought a supplement called moringa to treat her symptoms related to autoimmune disease after seeing ads for it on Facebook from a company called Rosabella.
Months after she started taking the pills daily, federal regulators announced a recall for Rosabella’s moringa supplement because some of its contaminated pills were sickening people with salmonella.
Wundrow said she didn’t experience salmonella symptoms, but claims her health got worse as she took the supplement.
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