LeBron James' legal team appears to be trying to stop the spread of viral AI videos featuring basketball stars. As 404 Media a law firm representing James has sent out a halt and deprecation letter to those behind the AI platform that will allow Discord users to create AI videos for James and other NBA stars.
As 404 Beware, these videos have been around for a while, but are particularly strange clips that appear to have acquired James' lawyer. The video, which reportedly claims to have millions of views on Instagram, shows pregnant James was loaded into an ambulance after telling AI Steph Curry “we're born soon.”
404 It reports that at least three Instagram accounts that shared the clip have since been deleted despite the video being available. The founder of the AI platform used to create the video also posted about the suspension and Desist letter. It is unclear what was in the letter and whether James' lawyers were also in touch with Meta about the video. I contacted the company for more details about the rules.
Of course, LeBron James is far from the only public figure working on an unwanted version of his own AI. Social media scammers are routinely impersonating celebrities to promote bold products and other schemes. We previously reported on such scams, including the nature of Fox News that multiplied on Facebook. Jamie Lee Curtis recently had to publicly sue Mark Zuckerberg to defeat himself.
However, James' video is a little different. They are not characterized by false support and seem like a prank that is meant to go viral in the way many “AI slops” do. And James and other celebrities will continue to make it difficult to prevent this kind of deepfake from spreading. Several quick tests by Engadget showed that it is relatively easy to get an AI chatbot and create images and videos of “Pregnant LeBron James”.
First I asked ChatGpt, Gemini and Copilot to make such a photo. All chatbots initially rejected it, saying that such an image could violate the guidelines. However, when given the image of James, when he asked him to “make this person pregnant for eight months,” Google's Gemini provided a 7-second clip of a basketball star hugging her pregnant belly. (I contacted Google to clarify the rules regarding such content.)
Similarly, Meta AI does not seem to have reserved about creating images of “LeBron James during Pregnancy,” and promptly provided many of such variations. These works are less detailed than the first video that went viral, but they highlight how difficult it is for AI companies to prevent them from avoiding what guardrails might be.
