AI has been a major problem for celebrities ranging from Rylan Clark to President Joe Biden, and now Zoe Ball has issued a warning about frauds involving her face.
The BBC Radio 2 broadcaster is’very worried’ after being alerted to scammers pushing people to invest in a scam using her phoney support.
Zoe, 53, went on BBC Morning Live to warn supporters that the websites had ‘absolutely nothing to do with her’ and encouraged them to report the crooks.
Fake headlines are being made saying that the presenter engaged in a profitable financial plan, only to see victims lose their money.
Speaking to hosts Helen Skelton and Gethin Jones, Zoe said: ‘Basically I’m not really on Facebook but lots of my listeners have drawn me to the attention of this story.
‘There are some kind of posts going up on these Facebooks luring people in with these headlines, something about Zoe Ball shame.’
Zoe continued: ‘A lot of people are calling it Apex AI I think and it’s making out that I’ve invested some money into this financial scheme and done quite well from it.
‘And then it’s encouraging people who follow me to do the same. I’ve had so many people getting in touch asking if it’s a real thing.
‘Many of whom have actually given their details across and then they’ve had phone calls and follow ups.
‘I am absolutely nothing to do with this, it is a complete scam and I’m really quite concerned about people being conned out of their money.’
Other well-known faces, such as Rochelle Humes and Rylan Clark, have been exploited in similar schemes, with their features pasted onto fraudulent photographs.
Explicit AI-generated photos of Taylor Swift spurred US regulators to examine into legislation, and X removed the option to search for the I Knew You Were Trouble singer on the app.
Rylan and Rochelle advocated for greater limits on the budding technology, citing the government’s ‘pro-innovation’ stance to AI.
There is a white paper on AI that seeks to set principles for regulation, but it accepts that more time in parliament is required for strengthening and clarification.
Zoe recently announced that she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and is attempting to handle the symptoms well.
She also had a’meltdown’ on the set of Taskmaster during filming because she struggled with one of the assignments.
‘I am ADHD. My son [Woody] and I are both, we’re quite similar. I make myself laugh sometimes, because if I’m in a small space and I’ve got loads of tasks to do, I can cover so many miles,’ she told the Daily Mirror.
‘My family, they laugh because they’ll find things of mine in certain places and they’re like, “If you follow this, you’ll see what Mum was trying to achieve”.’
