- Katy Perry was falsely depicted attending the Met Gala via AI images that gained traction on social media.
- AI photos made it look like Rihanna was there, too — except she was home with the flu.
- Welcome to the year of the semi-decent deepfake.
Katy Perry did not wear a luxurious deep-V gown with fabric moss at the end, nor did she sport a tight corset dress at Monday’s Met Gala.
But photos of both looks took off on social media, and Perry’s mother congratulated the singer over text for looking like “the Rose Parade” in the gown.
Perry was nowhere near the star-studded Fifth Avenue event, which she has attended on and off since 2009. After this year’s photos started gaining traction on social media, she posted a video from her studio, wearing a tight, leather-looking outfit.
Perry’s mom and plenty of people like her watching the event on social media fell for the images, which appear to have been created with generative AI. The singer highlighted the fake photos and her mom’s credulity in an Instagram post on Monday. The post comes a month after Perry joined over 200 other artists calling for tech companies and developers to not use AI-generated tools to replace songwriters and artists.
This is the year generative AI-enabled deepfakes hit the mainstream, from robocalls with imitations of President Joe Biden to fake, explicit photos of Taylor Swift. No US federal law prohibits deepfakes — media like photos, video, or audio showing people doing or saying things they did not. The Federal Communications Commission bans AI-generated voices in robocalls, and some states prohibit deepfake pornography.
Perry wasn’t the only celebrity deepfaked at the Met Gala. A small Twitter account posted a photo that appears to show longtime Met Queen Rihanna smiling from the gala’s carpet, draped in a forest gown with an expansive top.
Like Perry, Rihanna was nowhere near the event — she was sick with the flu. And like the Perry photos, Rihanna’s fake picture had a much different carpet than the actual cream-and-blue Met Gala floor, a telltale sign of AI’s interference.
The photos of Perry and Rihanna are light-hearted. But deepfakes pose a real threat to voters and to everyday people caught up in situations with malicious actors, from romance scams to workplace disputes.
