2024-02-09 07:43:48
“If you read on the Internet about miracle cures suggested by doctors or well-known people, be suspicious. The doctor who is mentioned” as “associated with the product may be unaware of it. Unfortunately, they are real scams.” Dermatologist Antonino Di Pietro wanted to warn as many people as possible with a post published on his social profiles just a couple of weeks ago. The expert, who works in a center in Milan, is a well-known face. So far, what he has reported is quite frequent. Just think of the infectious disease specialist Matteo Bassetti, and the image of him illicitly affixed to promotions of prodigious treatments for various pathologies. He practices that he has been denouncing for some time now. Indeed, it has become his personal battle. But in Di Pietro’s case there is more: today the white coat was able to see first-hand the deception of artificial intelligence used with bad intentions.
“This morning a patient sent me a video published on a Facebook page, complimenting me. When I saw it it was disturbing”, he tells Adnkronos Salute. In the video we see Di Pietro extolling the properties of an alleged drug, illustrating the case of a woman who was cured of a devastating fungus in just 3 days. It’s a shame that he “never uttered those words”, nor did he obviously ever take care of the patient in question. In short, testimonials without him knowing. It is the last frontier of image manipulation. And Di Pietro wanted to raise the alarm: “My voice was reconstructed with AI to advertise a product that I don’t know, and which perhaps doesn’t even exist. The aim of these scams may not be to sell the products, which if okay they are of no use, but even stealing the credit card details provided by those who decide to buy them”.
To create the fake, Di Pietro reconstructs, “someone took a video of mine from a few years ago”, available online. “They reworked it and added audio. If you look at it carefully you might realize that it doesn’t correspond perfectly to my lips, but it can be misleading. And the disturbing thing is that the timbre resembles mine, and so the cadence. So the AI copied my way of speaking, and it’s incredible. In some passages the voice becomes a little metallic, robot-like, but those who don’t know me well don’t notice.”
The audio attributed to the doctor is full of details and exclamations that are even a little exaggerated and not very technical: the patient “couldn’t walk, I was horrified”, is for example a passage from the fake video. Or again: “We started treatment with the new drug and the result surprised me too.” In short, reflects the specialist, “one of the problems with artificial intelligence is that it also becomes valuable for criminals. This morning I immediately got in touch with the postal police and they have already sent a notice to Facebook to block this site, who I learned was based in Panama.”
“And the trouble – continues Di Pietro – is that they are doing a real advertising campaign because, in addition to this site, a photograph of me is circulating, with an interview written by a journalist who would always hear from me about this product for mycosis. All false. What seems even more worrying to me is that this product doesn’t even appear to exist. So, as was explained to me, the intention is not to sell it. In the best case scenario, one buys the product and then it never arrives, therefore only the money for the single purchase was stolen. But, in the worst case scenario, there could be more important scams behind it. And the aim, once the credit card details have been stolen, could be to take away more money”.
“This is an increasingly advanced form of delinquency”, insists the dermatologist. “It is harmful to people and also to the doctor, who risks being denounced or reported to the Order if, not knowing of the existence of this material, he does not publicly dissociate himself by denouncing that it is fake. In fact, we cannot do drug advertising. I therefore publicly distance myself from this thing.”
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