As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced – and humans learn how to harness its potential – dangers such as the curse of the celebrity scam are on the epic rise. Scammers have been setting up fake social media pages and creating artificial intelligence deepfakes of celebritys’ voices and appearances to con people out of money online.
Pirates of the Caribbean star Johnny Depp is the latest celebrity to issue a warning to fans on Instagram over scammers pretending to be him in order to extort money in exchange for fake voice notes, meetings or other experiences.
Earlier this week Depp posted to his Instagram account saying:
“Sadly, it has been brought to my attention that online scammers are intensifying their efforts to target my fans and supporters. As part of their tactics, they create multiple, deceptive social media and email accounts impersonating me and members of my team.
“Today, AI can create the illusion of my face and voice. Scammers may look and sound just like the real me. But, neither I, nor my team, will ask you for money or your personal information.”
He goes on to list his official social media handles, and confirm that he does not use his social media platforms, or other online methods, to contact fans, finishing: “Again, neither myself, my team, my agent, nor my family will ever contact you on my behalf asking for money or your personal information.”
In January 2024 Taylor Swift was at the center of a disturbing deepfake crime, when fake yet sexually explicit images of the singer circulated on social media. Similarly, in 2023 the Pope fell victim to a deepfake as images of Pope Francis wearing a white puffer jacket went viral, confusing millions of viewers.
These two high-profile deepfakes, which fooled many people, raised public awareness about not only the significant risks to everyone who has ever posted an image of themselves online, but also how these images are created and the legality around the creation and ownership of them.
To create a deepfake image or a visual or audio recording, two generative AI (GenAI) tools are needed. While one tool creates the image or recording, the other tries to detect if the output is fake. These systems working together are referred to as competing generator and discriminator artificial neural networks, within a generative adversarial network (GAN), which is a deep learning process.
The generator (also known as the encoder) analyzes the inputted data and pulls the key features to produce the most realistic outcomes. These are then sent to the discriminator (also known as the decoder), which detects the fake sound elements and refines the image, video or audio.
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Legislation protecting people from the serious issue of deepfakes cannot currently keep up with advances in AI. In an attempt to tackle the issue, on January 07 2025, the UK government pledged to make creating sexually explicit ‘deepfake’ images a criminal offence.
Perpetrators will face up to two years in prison for taking an intimate image without consent, and installing equipment to enable these offences.
It says: “The proliferation of these hyper-realistic images has grown at an alarming rate, causing devastating harm to victims, particularly women and girls who are often the target.
“To tackle this, the government will introduce a new offence meaning perpetrators could be charged for both creating and sharing these images, not only marking a crackdown on this abhorrent behaviour but making it clear there is no excuse for creating a sexually explicit deepfake of someone without their consent.”
Currently there is no comprehensive enacted federal legislation in the United States that bans or even regulates deepfakes. In October 2023, a teenager in New Jersey created an AI nude of his female classmate and circulated it on Snapchat. He was punished with a one-day suspension from school.
Congress is currently considering legislation that, if passed, would regulate the creation, disclosure, and dissemination of deepfakes.
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