Concern over AI risk to next election as Sunak deepfake ads appear on Facebook

More than 100 paid-for deepfake video advertisements impersonating Rishi Sunak were promoted on Facebook in the last month alone, according to research which has raised alarm bells about the risk AI poses ahead of the general election.

The adverts may have reached as many as 400,000 people - despite appearing to break several of Facebook's policies and mark the first time that the prime minister's image has been doctored in a systematic way en masse.

More than £12,929 was spent on 143 adverts, which originated from 23 different countries including the US, Turkey, Malaysia and the Philippines.

They included one with faked footage of a BBC newsreader, Sarah Campbell, appearing to read out "breaking news" that falsely claimed a scandal had erupted around Sunak secretly earning "colossal sums from a project that was initially intended for ordinary citizens".

They carried the untrue claim that Elon Musk had launched an application capable of "collecting" stock market transactions, and followed with a deepfaked clip of Sunak saying the government had decided to test the application rather than risking the money of ordinary people. The clips then led to a spoofed BBC News page promoting a scam investment.