Potentially Fake AI-Altered Ad Featuring Bulgarian Actor Mihail Bilalov Misrepresents Joint-Pain Product

May 4, 2024

An allegedly manipulated Facebook advertisement misused footage of Bulgarian actor and television host Mihail Bilalov, modifying the audio and lip movements to deceptively promote a purported joint-pain product. The ad reportedly linked to a fabricated article imitating a Bulgarian news outlet and an online sales funnel for a product claimed as unavailable through pharmacies.

Discernible discrepancies in the video and audio evidence suggest AI-manipulation of Mihail Bilalov's likeness. Fact-checking is crucial to distinguish misleading AI-generated content from authentic information.
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Alleged deployer

unknown-scammers

Alleged developer

unknown-voice-cloning-technology-developers, unknown-deepfake-technology-developers

Alleged harmed parties

people-seeking-medical-advice, mihail-bilalov, epistemic-integrity, general-public, general-public-of-bulgaria

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Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.