A video featuring AI-generated voice clones of heart surgeon Dr. Devi Shetty and a news anchor falsely claims the former was berated on-air by a pharmaceutical company representative for promoting the natural healing of cardiovascular disease. It goes around with claims.
The video also includes footage of an unrelated fight that was captured live on air in which Dr. Shetty claims he was punched in the face by a representative.
BOOM has discovered that an AI voice clone of Dr. Devi Shetty is being used to promote plant-based medicines for hypertension and high blood pressure.
The video has the Aaj Tak logo in the top right corner and appears to display a news bulletin reporting about the attack on Dr Shetty. Later in the video, Dr. Shetty's AI-generated voice clone says that he has developed an exemplary drug using natural ingredients to treat cardiovascular diseases. A Facebook user shared the video with the caption, “Shocking incident of attack on renowned cardiologist Dr. Deviprasad Shetty* *Please spread the word.”
Click here to see the video and click here to see the archive.
The video was posted on WhatsApp with the caption: “Prominent cardiologist Dr. Devi Sethi gets slammed on national television. Truly shameful. Let's force the government to take action against pharmaceutical companies.” It is also spread above. (as per original)
fact check
BOOM discovered that the footage of the brawl was from an unrelated video, and that AI voice clones of the news anchor and Dr. Devi Shetty were being used to promote a drug to treat cardiovascular disease. Furthermore, we could not find any news reports that Dr. Devi Shetty was attacked on air.
BOOM first performed a reverse image search on the video's keyframes and discovered a YouTube video containing visuals of the same fight. A longer version of the video was spotted on YouTube by News Nation on January 13, 2017, with the caption: “Former Bigg Boss 10 contestant Swami Om indulges in scuffle and faces protests in studio.” .
Click here to watch the video. Below is a comparison of the viral video and a screen capture of the brawl seen on a YouTube news report.
AI voice clone of Dr. Devi Shetty and newscaster
We independently extracted audio clips of both Dr. Shetty and the news anchor from the viral video and ran them through the Loccus.ai tool. The results for both audio clips show that they were generated using artificial intelligence.
The result of Devi Shetty's voice clip by Loccus.ai can be seen below.
Loccus.ai results for news anchor audio clips are shown below.
Additionally, BOOM performed a reverse image search on the keyframes where Dr. Shetty is seen speaking in the viral video. We found an interview with Dr. Shetty uploaded by NDTV Profit on November 24, 2022, featuring the same visuals but different audio.
Click here to take a look.
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