Well, the Taylor Swift craze now has her fans getting duped.
An ad for Le Creuset, a high-end cookware brand, that appeared on various social media platforms. The ad showed a likeness of Taylor Swift and used a voice that mimicked hers. It was promoting a giveaway of Le Creuset cookware sets. The voice in the ad, claiming to be Taylor, said, “Hey you all, it’s Taylor Swift here. Due to a packaging error, we can’t sell 3,000 Le Creuset cookware sets, so I’m giving them away to my loyal fans for free.”
Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it was. Both Le Creuset and Taylor Swift’s representatives confirmed that they had nothing to do with this ad. In fact, a spokesperson for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, also confirmed that this ad was removed from their platform.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting. An AI expert, Marva Bailer, weighed in on this situation. She pointed out that although AI was used to create the ad, it was ultimately a human decision to risk reputation and consumer trust. Bailer emphasized how the ease of creating content with AI tools can lead to serious brand and legal issues when used without proper consent.
This isn’t the first time a celebrity’s likeness has been used without permission in AI-generated ads. Remember last year when Scarlett Johansson was used. There was fine print under the ad that read, “Images produced by Lisa AI. It has nothing to do with this person.” At least with that ad, there was a disclaimer stating that the Hanks had nothing to do with the ad and it was AI-generated.
Johansson’s lawyer told Variety, “We do not take these things lightly. Per our usual course of action in these circumstances, we will deal with it with all legal remedies that we will have.”
