Purported AI-Generated Advertisements Reportedly Falsely Depicted Lee Ji-hye Endorsing Food and Clothing Products

Purported AI-generated advertisements reportedly circulated online using South Korean singer and broadcaster Lee Ji-hye's likeness to falsely promote food and clothing products. Lee reportedly said she had no connection to the advertisements and warned followers not to click associated links or make purchases. No confirmed consumer losses were identified in available reporting.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

Scammers used AI to manipulate a celebrity's public likeness to create fake endorsements, aiming to deceive consumers for personal or financial gain.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was caused by human scammers who intentionally used deployed AI tools to create fake advertisements for financial gain.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The incident involves AI-generated content such as deepfakes, where scammers used AI technology to manipulate the singer's image and create fake endorsements.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: None named
• AI purpose: Deepfake Image Generation; Deepfake Video Generation
• Behaviour type: unknown
• Alleged developer: Synthetic video generation technology developers, Synthetic media generation technology developers, Synthetic audio generation technology developers, Deepfake technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Scammers impersonating Lee Ji-hye, Scammers, Online advertisers
• Alleged harmed parties: YouTube users, Social media users, Lee Ji-hye, General public of Korea, General public, Fans of Lee Ji-hye, Epistemic integrity

Harm severity

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the report describes AI-generated scam advertisements circulating online.

Directly caused: AI-generated advertisements using Lee Ji-hye's likeness without permission were created and spread online.

Indirectly caused: N/A

Inferred additional harm: N/A

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the report describes fake endorsements and misleading advertisements.

Directly caused: The AI-generated ads falsely claimed Lee Ji-hye endorsed underwear and food products, misleading her followers.

Indirectly caused: N/A

Inferred additional harm: N/A

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 1

Potential causes

Technology

• Sophisticated AI Manipulation Tools: AI tools allowed scammers to easily manipulate celebrity images.
• Unrestricted Deepfake Generation: Generative AI tech allows creating realistic fake endorsements.

Data Inputs

• Unauthorized Likeness Harvesting: Celebrity photos and videos were harvested from social media.
• Misleading Channel Attribution: Scammers used the celebrity's real YouTube channel name as source.

Human Factors

• Scammer Deception Tactics: Scammers exploit public trust in celebrities to drive scam traffic.

Process and Methods

• Inadequate Ad Verification: Online platforms allowed unverified AI ads to be distributed.
• Weak Link Filtering: Malicious links to suspicious sites were not flagged or blocked.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of Deepfake Regulations: Inadequate legal frameworks to prevent unauthorized AI likeness use.
• Weak Cross-Border Enforcement: Difficulty in regulating scam sites operating from other countries.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The reports clearly describe the unauthorized use of Lee Ji-hye's likeness in AI-generated ads. While the specific AI generator is not named, the application of the boundary rules makes the classification highly certain.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tools used to generate the images and videos are not identified.

South Korean singer Lee Ji-hye's likeness was used without permission in AI-generated deepfake advertisements to promote products and direct users to suspicious websites. The incident represents a common commercial fraud attempt with negligible national security implications, as it does not target critical infrastructure, government functions, or state stability.

• Overall national security impact: Negligible
• Response level: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: South Korea
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. Represents an ongoing strategic concern regarding the proliferation of deepfake technology rather than an active national security crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI was used as a tool by human scammers who controlled the creation and distribution of the advertisements.
• Novelty: Established threat. Unauthorized use of celebrity likenesses in deepfake advertisements is a well-documented and established scam methodology.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident involves online commercial deepfake advertisements with no physical impact or critical infrastructure threats.
• Information security: Negligible. The deepfakes were used for commercial scamming rather than state-sponsored intelligence compromise or systematic political disinformation.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. The incident is a commercial fraud case targeting a celebrity and does not impact government operations or state sovereignty.
• Economic security: Negligible. The incident is a localized commercial scam with no confirmed consumer losses and no systemic threat to financial systems or strategic industries.
• Societal stability: Negligible. The incident caused individual distress to a celebrity but does not represent population-scale social manipulation or systematic human rights violations.