Dr. Celine Gounder joins "CBS Mornings Plus" to discuss how AI-generated deepfakes are impersonating doctors and spreading misinformation online.

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to generate hyper-realistic videos of doctors, some of which use the likeness of real medical professionals to promote questionable products or unproven health advice. CBS News has identified dozens of such deepfake videos on social media, collectively amassing tens of millions of views. These videos can mislead viewers and undermine trust in legitimate health information and the broader healthcare system.

Experts warn that the primary red flag for these videos is the promotion of products, especially those claiming miraculous results. Other signs include glitches in facial movements or robotic-sounding voices, though advances in AI technology are making these harder to spot. Social media platforms like Meta and TikTok have removed flagged videos, but creators continue to evade detection. Health professionals recommend relying on reputable sources such as the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, professional medical societies, or personal physicians for accurate health information.

How AI doctors are flooding the internet with false health advice

Hyper-realistic videos generated by artificial intelligence, they appear more and more online. It's a disturbing new trend that's emerging. Deep fake doctors. Clips like the ones you're seeing now mimic professionals in the medical field and in some cases use real doctors faces all to sell questionable products or promote questionable unproven advice. So how can you discern reliable health information from the fake stuff? Joining us now in real life CBS News medical contributor Dr. Selene Gounder, editor-at-large for KFF Health News. Dr. Gounder, thank you very much for being here. This is a big worry actually because you see it online, people trust it. How can you tell, how big of an issue is this emerging problem? CBS News confirmed found dozens of deep fake doctor videos shared on social media and all together they had tens of millions of views. So we spoke to Dr. Joel Bervell, he's a physician who's known for debunking medical myths and calling out bias on social media, but earlier this year someone created a deep fake video of him to sell a product. No. Take a look. It looked like me, it didn't sound like me, but it was promoting a product that I'd never promoted in the past in a voice that wasn't mine. And when we have fiction out there or we have what are thought to be experts in a field saying something that may not be true, that distorts what is fact and it makes it harder for the public to believe anything that comes out of science, from a doctor, from the health care system overall. Yeah, it's really those two things, right? It's the danger of the bad information and then it's the danger of the erosion of trust in information, right? Yeah, and this erosion of trust is really a problem with the health system. Whether it's people who are upset about pharmaceutical companies charging too much money for their prescription drugs, their insurance companies denying claims, these deep fakes on social media, all of it erodes all of the trust in the health system. So how can people tell? What are some red flags? Well, number one, number two, number three, are they trying to sell you something? Okay, okay. So almost always when you see these deep fakes or any other kind of misinformation, they're trying to sell you something. So that's a huge red flag, especially if they're trying to sell you some kind of miracle product. Okay. A couple other things to look for, are there glitches in the faces or does this voice sound robotic or monotonous? Those might be clues, but AI is getting better and better with video and sound, so that's not totally reliable either. What can the medical community do to fight this? Well, some of it is what we can do to flag these things. So a lot of the steps that social media companies are taking to take some of these videos down are also dependent on people flagging them. And so both Meta and TikTok, they did take down the videos that our team flagged. Meta also emphasized that these creators are actively trying to avoid detection. I mean, of course they are, right? And now health information is competing, good health information is competing with a lot of this noise, this misinformation, now supercharged by AI. Some of the sources that people can turn to as alternatives to what you find on social media, one would be websites like the Mayo Clinic or the Cleveland Clinic, professional societies like the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and of course your personal physician. Yes, hit up your physician on MyChart. Dr. Gounder, that's me, I'm always writing. I don't know about that. I'm always writing. Dr. Gounder, thank you so much. I'm sure your nurse will respond to me. Up next.

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How AI doctors are flooding the internet with false health advice

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