Cathy Pedrayes, a mother and content creator, has noticed a concerning trend on social media platforms, especially TikTok. She has observed that artificial intelligence avatars are being used to promote questionable health products. While scrolling through TikTok during the holidays, Pedrayes came across a video featuring a woman who claimed to be a “butt doctor.”
This person offered questionable health advice, including recommending an Amazon supplement to address iron deficiency. Despite the video’s lack of authenticity, it garnered over 5.2 million views. “Millions of people watched this video,” Pedrayes said in a follow-up TikTok post. “This is AI. It’s fake, and I’m noticing a ton of accounts using this tactic.”
Pedrayes’s observations point to a broader problem that social media platforms are facing as AI technology becomes more widespread: the rise of AI-generated health advertisements. These videos often feature AI avatars that look convincingly human, tricking viewers into believing false claims about health and wellness products. Reports suggest that this issue isn’t limited to TikTok; it’s also happening on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, where similar AI health videos are frequently seen.
Javon Ford, a cosmetic chemist with nearly half a million followers on TikTok, has also expressed concerns about the impact of AI-generated content in the health space. After discovering several AI doctor videos promoting harmful skincare trends, Ford traced some of these videos back to a tool called Captions.ai.
This app allows users to create videos with avatars that can be customized based on traits like race and gender. Interestingly, these avatars don’t seem to be entirely AI-generated; instead, they often involve altered footage of real people to make them appear more believable.
“It’s a consumer safety issue as well as a user safety issue,” says Olivia Little, a senior investigative researcher from Media Matters. “It’s all based on the false credibility that they’ve given themselves to, quite literally, trick the consumer.” Little’s concerns are backed by a recent report from Media Matters, which found numerous accounts using AI-generated influencers and misleading claims to sell unverified health supplements.
Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has advanced rapidly, but the development of regulatory guidelines by social media companies hasn’t kept up. While platforms like Meta and TikTok have policies requiring AI-generated content to be labeled, enforcement is still lacking. Media Matters reported that, although TikTok removed some accounts for violating their “Spam & Deceptive Behaviors” guidelines, similar accounts quickly reappeared. A TikTok spokesperson confirmed that flagged accounts were removed but admitted that continuously monitoring for new ones is a challenge.
For creators like Pedrayes, who focus on raising awareness about consumer safety, these developments emphasize the urgent need for education about the deceptive potential of AI. “Now I’m finding that just the basics of ‘Oh, I saw this video online. How do I know if it’s true?’” she notes. “It seems like [people] are missing those skills. Platforms definitely have a responsibility to do more in toning this down.”
Source: The Rolling Stone, Media Matters
Published: Mar 13, 2025 6:00 PM UTC