Tom Hanks is warning everyone on the internet that he is not trying to sell you a dental plan, but an AI version of him is.
As Variety reports, the real Tom Hanks has taken to Instagram to share a photo of the unauthorized AI of himself that appears in a dental plan promotion. Hanks included the following message with the photo:
"BEWARE!! There's a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me. I have nothing to do with it. - Tom Hanks."
In a Reddit thread regarding the deepfake/AI, a user by the name of spif points out that this could easily be taken a step further, with the next ad starring the AI Tom Hanks claiming, "My Instagram got hacked and it's claiming these ads are fake, but as you can see this is definitely the real me! Time to get your teeth cleaned!"
The problem of deepfakes and AI only looks set to get worse as they become ever more realistic and can call upon advanced large language models to interact in a believable way, too. Recently a hacker used a deepfake version of an employee's voice to breach an IT company, while in contrast, Denmark is trying to attract tourists by bringing famous paintings to life using AI. TikTok, meanwhile, has banned deepfakes of private individuals.
It seems likely the now outed unauthorized Tom Hanks AI will quickly stop promoting dental plans. However, how long will it be before another well-known celebrity decides to let an AI version of themselves do ads in return for a healthy pay check? That already happened in Russia.
