It’s AI, not Swift, in ad scam
Cookware promotion shows fake version of star, without permission, on social media
Taylor Swift’s affinity for Le Creuset is real: Her collection of the cookware has been featured on a Tumblr account dedicated to the pop star’s home decor, in an analysis of her kitchen published by Variety and in a Netflix documentary that was highlighted by Le Creuset’s Facebook page.
What is not real: Swift’s endorsement of the company’s products, which have appeared in recent weeks in ads on Facebook and elsewhere featuring her face and voice.
The ads are among the many celebrityfocused scams made far more convincing by artificial intelligence. Within a single week in October, actor Tom Hanks, journalist Gayle King and YouTube personality MrBeast all said that AI versions of themselves had been used, without permission, for deceptive dental plan promotions, iPhone giveaway offers and other ads.
In Swift’s case, experts said, AI technology helped create a synthetic version of the singer’s voice, which was cobbled together with footage of her alongside clips showing Le Creuset Dutch ovens. In several ads, Swift’s cloned voice addressed “Swifties” — her fans — and said she was “thrilled” to be handing out free cookware sets. All people had to do was click on a button and answer a few questions before the end of the day.
Le Creuset said it was not involved with the singer for any consumer giveaway. The company urged shoppers to check its official online accounts before clicking on suspicious ads.
Famous people have lent their celebrity to advertisers for as long as advertising has existed. Sometimes, it has been unwillingly. More than three decades ago, Tom Waits sued Frito-Lay — and won nearly $2.5 million — after the corn chip company imitated the singer in a radio ad without his permission.
The Le Creuset scam campaign also featured fabricated versions of Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey, who in 2022 posted an exasperated video about the prevalence of fake social media ads, emails and websites falsely claiming that she endorsed weight loss gummies.
Over the past year, major advances in AI have made it far easier to produce an unauthorized digital replica of a real person.
The Le Creuset scam campaign was probably created using a text-to-speech service, said Siwei Lyu, a computer science professor who runs the Media Forensic Lab at the University at Buffalo in New York. Such tools usually translate a script into an AI-generated voice, which can then be incorporated into existing video footage using lip-syncing programs.
“These tools are becoming very accessible these days,” said Lyu, who added that it was possible to make a “decent-quality video” in less than 45 minutes.
Dozens of separate but similar Le Creuset scam ads featuring Swift were visible as of late last week on Meta’s public Ad Library. (The company owns Facebook and Instagram.) The campaign also ran on TikTok.
The ads sent viewers to websites that mimicked legitimate outlets like the Food Network, which showcased fake news coverage of the Le Creuset offer alongside testimonials from fabricated customers. Participants were asked to pay a “small shipping fee of $9.96” for the cookware. Those who complied faced hidden monthly charges without ever receiving the promised cookware.