Burioni's AI-assisted fake video on TikTok. "Frustrating not being able to stop them"

Manipulated clips where the virologist promotes fake remedies for various problems. "I receive emails every day and can only warn that they are scams"

This time the field of action is TikTok . "Watch the fantastic short videos created by Dr Roberto Burioni", the invitation to users. Dr Roberto Burioni also seems to be the name of the account (which is actually @italionos), a profile that has already accumulated 26 thousand followers and 71 thousand likes. There are about ten clips. The last video posted opens with the virologist in a suit and tie staring into the camera and saying: "If you're not hungry for breakfast in the morning, it's a sign of high cortisol levels. Do you wake up at 3 in the morning to go to the bathroom? High cortisol. Tension and pain in your shoulders? More cortisol". The list goes on - the background music makes it all almost hypnotic - until Burioni reassures: "It's not your fault. My advice? Start taking Moringa". That video is a fake packaged with AI . And every day Burioni opens his email inbox and knows he will find "several requests" from people looking for clarification or advice on the dosage of products with imaginative names. "I did everything I could to block these videos - he explains to Adnkronos Salute - but I didn't succeed. The result was zero. It's frustrating ."

In the clips, says the professor of Microbiology and Virology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, "typically there is a studio interview in which Fabio Fazio asks me questions and I answer with my voice. I sound just like me. Then obviously listening to the audio I notice the mistakes on the stressed vowels that I would never make, the differences are clear to me. But in the end it happens that a lot of people believe it and I receive emails in which there are also those who ask me why the products they ordered have not arrived, or how to get them. I even created an automatic response to immediately tell these people that it is a scam . I also write it continuously on social media".

The latest alert posted by Burioni is from today, May 16. "The videos in which I promote drugs, supplements, therapies and so on are fake - warns the virologist - There is an account on TikTok that I reported and so on, but it remains in plain sight (confirming that the law does not exist on social media) and I can do nothing but warn you again".

In one of these fake videos, it is one of the examples given by Burioni, "it is me who is giving a lesson during the broadcast 'Che tempo che fa'". These are recordings that are easily found online, and the images are manipulated with AI, which makes everything more credible. Burioni is not the only expert in the crosshairs. Many other specialists have had their image stolen for these videos that transform them into 'testimonials without their knowledge'. "Or worse - Burioni specifies - into false testimonials 'with our knowledge'. Because in reality we discover these videos, we see what happens, but we cannot stop them. It is absurd. Also because, otherwise, if a journalist publishes a false interview, it is immediately removed".

Warning the public that they are fake videos is not enough to stem their impact. "They range from fake remedies for osteoarthritis to hair products, and I continue to receive requests for information from people who are either about to buy these fake products or have already bought them before writing to me." Lately it has been "a crescendo. The emails I receive - Burioni observes - come in waves. Every time a new account comes out, and now there's this one on TikTok, more arrive. It's very serious, because this is the 'wild west' , these people are doing something illegal and we can only report it. Likewise, in these fake videos they could make me say all kinds of things - swear words, insults - and that's not right. I don't like the fact that in my country someone can use the image of a person to defraud patients and nothing can be done. It's all really very frustrating."