Taylor Swift has had a busy, well, two decades, but the past year or so has been especially eventful for the multi-talented singer/songwriter. From the whole Ticketmaster fiasco to her brain chemistry-altering Eras tour, and, of course, her romance with Travis Kelce and that unhappy reaction to Joy Koy’s Golden Globes joke at her expense, the “Anti-Hero” singer has been everywhere. Unfortunately for some fans, she has not been promoting cookware giveaways on social media, as we have AI to thank for that recent Swift appearance.
Why Did Fans Think Taylor Swift Was Promoting A Cookware Giveaway?
While many people have probably wondered what life would be like if they were famous at one point or another, the reality is that it does come with some disadvantages, like scammers using your likeness/voice without permission to sell any number of dubious goods and services. Well, this is officially the era where it looked like Taylor Swift was duping fans into signing up for a cookware giveaway, as some AI generated ads hit Facebook and other social media platforms recently, where the singer appeared to be promoting a Le Creuset giveaway.
It seems that the ad does feature some real video of the record-breaking chart-topper, but what likely really took most people in was the use of her voice, which was cobbled together using AI to make it sound like Swift was giving away the very expensive, 20-piece cookware sets “to my loyal fans, for free!”
We don't know who actually put these ads together, or who was collecting the “small shipping fee of $9.96” (along with hidden monthly charges that didn’t result in any cookware being delivered) the New York Times reports that fans were hit with if they followed through with clicking on the link to apply for the giveaway. However, everyone who fell prey to the scam should just forgive themselves and try to get their money back.
First, it’s not like the 2024 Golden Globe nominee has never promoted any products before. In fact, you’ve probably seen her in multiple Capital One credit card commercials over the past few years. Also, Swift is, in fact, a noted “Lover” of the Le Creuset brand, and even gifted some items from the collection to a fan when she attended her bridal shower in 2014.
On top of that, scammers who become proficient in AI programming have increasingly used computer generated likenesses of celebrities to dupe people into believing a number of schemes. Though the deepfakes of Tom Cruise from a few years ago were basically harmless and done to show just how convincing the tech can be, and “unreal” videos of Keanu Reeves on TikTok didn’t cause any undue harm, it’s obvious that the concern that AI deepfake technology would be used for nefarious purposes is pretty real.
Many of the fake-Taylor Swift ads have been pinpointed and taken down, and it would be best, if you find one, not to click on any links it provides.
