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Today's Al Roker falls victim to concerning scam and issues warning: 'It's frightening'
The NBC News weatherman is the latest in a line of celebrity victims like Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift
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The curse of deepfake AI continues, with the latest affected being NBC News' very own Al Roker, who was made the subject of a recent video circling online.
The TODAY anchor and Third Hour of Today co-host, 70, shared his story on the latest iteration of the latter, explaining that his likeness was used in a health-related AI-generated video.
The faked clip, sporting Al's full likeness, advertises a solution for hypertension, claiming that the TV weatherman had two heart attacks in the past, hence the diagnosis.
Recommended videoYou may also likeWATCH: Al Roker's friendly warning to co-anchor Dylan Dreyer
The information in the clip itself is false, however, as Al doesn't have hypertension nor has he ever had a heart attack. "A friend of mine sent me a link and said, 'Is this real?'" he said during a conversion with TODAY senior investigative consumer correspondent Vicky Nguyen, who led the story.Â
"And I clicked on it, and all of a sudden, I see and hear myself talking about having a couple of heart attacks. I don't have hypertension!"
The dad-of-three continued to emphasize that none of these situations were true. "It looks like me! I mean, I can tell that it's not me, but to the casual viewer, Al Roker's touting this hypertension cure… I've had some celebrity friends call because their parents got taken in by it."
Al is the latest celebrity to become the subject of an AI deepfake scmThe original video was shared on Facebook, and Meta told TODAY that they had "removed this page for violating our policies" after they reached out.
Several other celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, Tom Hanks, Brad Pitt and more have fallen victim to such scams, and have had to speak out about these situations so as to warn their fans.
TODAY senior investigative consumer correspondent Vicky Nguyen led the story"It's frightening," Al said speaking with his co-anchors Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer. "We used to say, 'Seeing is believing.' Well, that's kind of out the window now."
Craig added: "What's scary is that if this is where the technology is now, then five years from now…" Vicky demonstrated how easy it is to make such deepfakes using a free tool she found online to create one of herself.
While Al has had health issues, he has neither had a heart attack nor suffers from hypertensionThey thanked Vicky for her work on the story, with Craig even saying: "You helped save his reputation," to which Al quipped: "She needs a team to help do that."
The former added: "It's one of the latest examples of how scammers are using these deepfakes to really trick people," with Al explaining that he was "really surprised" to see this clip, elaborating on the quick work he and Vicky got to on the story, putting it together in just 24 hours.
"I can tell that it's not me, but to the casual viewer, Al Roker's touting this hypertension cure."Vicky spoke with Yoav Keren, CEO of BrandShield, during the segment as well, who investigated the deepfake she'd created of herself and touted how easy it was to replicate the same, making the issue that much more dangerous.Â
He told his Third Hour co-anchors about the "frightening" experience"I think this is becoming one of the biggest problems worldwide online," he explained. "I don't think that the average consumer understands…and you're starting to see more of these videos out there."
