How to protect yourself online after woman duped in AI Brad Pitt dating scam


Yesterday, news broke that an unsuspecting 53 year old woman was scammed out of £700,000, after believing that she was dating Brad Pitt. 

Posing as the movie star, the fraudster sent the victim a string of photos, created (often badly) using AI, to convince her that he was undergoing treatment for kidney cancer and needed money.

The interior designer told French channel TF1  that the ordeal started when she received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor’s mother after sharing photos of her lavish ski trip to Tignes on Instagram.

Fake photos of Brad Pitt lying in a hospital bed convinced her to hand over her money. It wasn’t until she saw recent images of the Hollywood star with his new girlfriend that she began to suspect she had been scammed. 

To help others from falling for similar scams, Colin Forte from Photo and Video Edits has compiled a list of tips to help educate the public on how to spot fake AI created images, so you don’t fall victim to fake Brad Pitts or other celebrities:

These are five AI-manipulated mistakes to watch out for:

  1. Lighting & shadows: Whenever you take a picture, you have to be aware that light affects all objects in the image consistently. This means, shadows should be consistent with the objects; so if you notice that these align unnaturally with the light, it is likely that the image was digitally altered. Focusing on lightning and shadow can guide you to spot whether an element was removed or added to the photo.
  2. Analyse reflections: reflections, whethere they are on glass, water, windows or shiny surfaces are great indicators for photograph consistency because they’re difficult to be manipulated convincingly. If reflections don’t match position or shape, you’re in the presence of a photograph that was tampered.
  3. Overly smooth edges & textures: The world is full of different textures, and AI struggles with replicating those realistic bits in the images it produced. For that reason, unnaturally smooth human skin, for example, or an object that looks too finely crafted without particular details are reliable indicators of a fake image.
  4. Inspect the image borders: Uneven or pixelated edges in people or objects in a photo can give its fakeness away. If images appear blurry or mismatched with the surroundings, it’s often a very sloppy editing job, which some AI is still making.
  5. Use reverse image search: Using Google Images or the website TinEye, you can upload a photo and see where it appears online. This can reveal if the image has been used elsewhere, potentially with a different context, or if it’s part of a known collection of stock photos.
Colin Forte, the founder of Photo And Video Edits, comments on why knowing how to spot a fake photo is important:
 
“AI has been revolutionary in the way that we edit photos, enhancing and speeding up the way that we complete tasks such as auto-retouching and more. However, it has opened up a new way for unsuspecting victims to be fooled into thinking that a photo is genuine and that celebrities like Brad Pitt are reaching out to you. A photo makes the request seem more real, but with advances in AI, people need to question everything to avoid falling for similar scams.
 
“If someone that you don’t know sends you a message online accompanied by a photo, then please do take the time to question whether or not the photo is real, as we’re seeing more and more cases of people falling victim to scams involving fake AI-generated photos. And whilst we would all love to have a celebrity reach out to us, these types of messages are 100% of the time going to be fake, unfortunately.”
 
Bio: Colin Forte is the founder of Photo And Video Edits. Along with 15 years of photography experience, he has a special interest in the role of editing and technology in photography
Chris Price