ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs have long paid attention to Elon Musk, who has become known for the controversial and bold leadership style he uses to run automaker Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and social media platform Twitter. A June 14 Facebook post included a video that appeared to show a CBS interview between journalist Gayle King and Musk discussing a new quantum artificial intelligence (AI) software project that could free ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs from having to work. The video is fake. Musk has not announced this project and the interview was fabricated.
The project is discussed in a post made on the Facebook page of Faith Bangladesh, which says it is a not-for-profit promoting health and technology.
promotes quantum AI, saying a "technological revolution" in the space is being "hidden from the public," but members of the group are "easily earning a fortune" from it.
"By the time you realize it, it will be too late," the post warned.
Rating: False
The video featured a five-minute interview purportedly between King and Musk on CBS Mornings, where Musk said he personally spent $5 billion developing a quantum AI-based stock trading software over the past two years that has a 91 per cent success rate.
King is depicted in the video as saying the project means "ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø (sic) won’t have to work anymore" because of the project.
"No project has ever given such opportunities to residents," she added.
The depiction of Musk in the video estimated the software can help someone make $237 an hour or $5,700 a day.
In the video, the depiction of Musk urges viewers to click on under the post where they can sign up for the program. The link leads to a website that takes on the appearance of the Toronto Star, with text imploring readers to hand over their names, emails and banking information.
The website URL does not match those used on the real Toronto Star website. There is no writer listed for the article and the text is full of awkward phrasing, typos and links that would not appear in a genuine article.
Torstar, owners of the Toronto Star, holds an investment in ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø as part of a joint agreement with subsidiaries of the Globe and Mail and Montreal's La Presse.
Investment scams like the one promoted in this Facebook post were among the with the highest levels of reported victim losses in Canada in 2022, according to a report from the RCMP. The ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Anti-Fraud Centre offers on how to avoid such scams.
Original sources
The portions of the video showing King bear a resemblance to she gave WBZ TV's Breana Pitts about an Oprah Winfrey interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex Harry and Meghan.
King wears the same V-neck green top, heart-shaped necklace, hoop earrings and shades of lipstick and mascara in both videos. Her hair is also in the same style in both clips.
The Musk portions appear to come from a May 2022 taping he did for the titled "Elon Musk on Twitter's bot problem, SpaceX's grand plan, Tesla stories, Giga Texas & more."
Musk has the same blurred-out background and shirt in both clips. He does not discuss a quantum AI trading software in the podcast video.
Into the world of deepfakes
Deepfakes rely on artificial intelligence to create synthetic videos where real images, audio and video are used to develop a new piece of content that resembles the original components but can feature someone saying or doing things they never said or did.
Such technology has been growing in popularity in recent years and was likely used in this video, as evidenced by several deepfake hallmarks in the clip.
Blurred video, inconsistent audio, robotic sounding voices and strange pronunciations are all signs of a deepfake video, .
These attributes were all in the Facebook video. For example, King said "ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø" rather than ºÚÁϳԹÏÍøs "won’t have to work anymore" because of the project. In other places, Musk's pronunciation of AI sounds slurred or he says "per cents" rather than "per cent."
Musk and AI
Musk was a founding co-chair for OpenAI, a non-profit AI research company best known for ChatGPT, a chatbot that mimics humanlike conversations.
He left its board in 2018 because Tesla was becoming more focused on AI and he wanted to eliminate potential future conflict, the company said .
He was among the more than 1,000 technology experts, including engineers from Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft as well as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who on training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, the large language model behind ChatGPT, in March.
Musk has since accumulated thousands of graphic processing units to create a called X.AI. He has not revealed his intentions for the company.
No comment
Musk did not respond to requests for comment left with his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
A note sent to Twitter's press account replied to a request for comment with an auto-generated email bearing a poop emoji that the company has used to respond to all requests for months.
Messages seeking comment from Faith Bangladesh, King and the All-In podcast also went unanswered.
However, CBS spokesperson Samantha Graham confirmed the clip was "not authentic" in an email to ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø.
Sources
(, )
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
()
About ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Press fact checks
You can find out more about ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø here and ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Press Fact Checks here. To reach our fact-checking team with any tips, corrections or comments, please email us at cpfactcheck@thecanadianpress.com.
