AI incident ·
Purported Deepfakes of Public Figures and Celebrities Reportedly Used to Market Honey-Based Supplements as Alzheimer's Treatments
In brief
An AI system built by Deepfake Technology Developers, Synthetic Media Generation Technology Developers and 2 others and deployed by Scammers, Scammers Impersonating Bill Gates and 4 others allegedly harmed Consumers, People Seeking Medical Advice and 12 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 2 reports
What happened
Beginning around October 2025, a campaign reportedly used AI-generated videos and cloned voices of well-known public figures and celebrities such as Bill Gates, Sanjay Gupta, Anderson Cooper, Bruce Willis, and others to market honey-based supplements as treatments for Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Consumers reportedly said modest purchases sometimes led to continuing charges or unwanted shipments, while cancellation and refund requests were difficult to resolve.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (2)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged harmed party
- Consumers, People Seeking Medical Advice, Victims Of Deepfake Enabled Fraud, Scam Victims, People With Alzheimer'S Disease And Their Families And Caregivers, People With Dementia And Their Families And Caregivers, Bill Gates, Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta, Bruce Willis, Social Media Users, Facebook Users, Celebrities, Public Figures
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
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- Causal entity
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- Intent
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- Timing
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Source record: incident #1564 on the AI Incident Database · all 2 reports