Description: Scammers used AI to create deepfake videos of Elon Musk promoting fraudulent investment opportunities. Over time, these scams have reportedly led to billions in investor losses. The deepfakes also use voice cloning technology. They have been distributed on social media and YouTube. In particular, they target the elderly, such as 82-year-old Steve Beauchamp, to invest significant sums. Despite efforts by platforms to remove these videos, the scams continue to proliferate.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Unknown deepfake creators and Unknown scammers, which harmed Elderly investors , Cryptocurrency users , Online investors , social media users , Retirees seeking investment opportunities , Steve Beauchamp and Elon Musk.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
795
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2024-08-14
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
nytimes.com · 2024
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
All Steve Beauchamp wanted was money for his family. And he thought Elon Musk could help.
Mr. Beauchamp, an 82-year-old retiree, saw a video late last year of Mr. Musk endorsing a radical investment opportunity that promised rapid returns. …
Variants
A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.