People are bad at spotting fake LinkedIn profiles generated by AI

Social media profiles with deepfake photos and AI-generated text fooled most participants in a study, even when there were obvious errors

By Chris Stokel-Walker

Social media profiles that contain telltale signs of fakery still convince large numbers of users to accept friendship requests – suggesting people are overly trusting of what they see online.

Deepfake technology, which can generate images of non-existent people using artificial intelligence, has been used by scammers to set up fake social media accounts. US intelligence officials have claimed that foreign spies use profiles with deepfake images to establish contacts and glean information on the business social network LinkedIn.

To test how easily people can be fooled by …