False obituaries
When artificial intelligence declares you dead: The lousy scam of the “obituary pirates”
You can also make money online with death and grief: just use an AI program and the obituary notice is ready
© BildFunkMV
False obituaries and obituaries are currently making headlines online. Even living people are sometimes declared dead. There is a business model behind it.
If you google this term in German, you won’t get very far – at most you’ll find obituaries for the Pirate Party. In English-speaking countries, however, this online scam is a phenomenon that is being discussed more widely, not just on portals for Internet nerds.
Two unpleasant trends are currently coming together. The phenomenon of “obituary pirates” has been around for a long time: such “obituary pirates” search the Internet for death reports of normal people, usually not celebrities.
People search for obituaries online – and also find false death reports
The aim is to write and publish your own new articles about the deaths of these people – in the hope of generating clicks via search engines when the deceased are googled by their friends, acquaintances or relatives.
The search volume is usually low in individual cases, writes “OMR”, a portal for online marketing. However, because these articles have little competition in the search engine and such fabricated death reports are bundled on websites, money can be made with the scam – with online advertising that is placed on portals with death reports, for example. Advertising on the internet is played out automatically.
Currently, such “obituary pirates” also benefit from the fact that online content can be created quickly and easily with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). This is the second trend that is currently fueling their scam.
The AI summarizes the information available on the Internet about the respective deceased, perhaps collects photos on social media and then spits out new content that is published on the Internet. The fatal thing about it is not only that the funeral messages are misused for commercial purposes, i.e. as an environment for online advertising, but that in many cases the AI also generates incorrect information – and invents things.
Not just a dead person, but a deceased couple
For example, the case of a woman who died recently became known – and whose ex-partner was declared dead along with her in the false obituaries. Or the tragic accident of a young man who was hit by a train in New York. In fake content probably generated by AI, the accidental death became a murder, which then generated a lot of attention – i.e. a lot of clicks – online.
Not only texts but also videos are created by “Obituary Pirates”. The reporter from Los Angeles dug through a whole series of false texts and films about her fictitious death – and was even sometimes really moved by grief, as she writes.
However, the content created by AI is often written quite poorly, according to reports about the phenomenon. This would also show that they are not real.
Despite thorough research with the support of IT experts, she was unable to find out why the Californian reporter’s death was reported in the first place.
In this – very prominent – case, the fake content has now been deleted. But other, less well-known people repeatedly fall victim to this scam, which legally operates in a gray area and whose perpetrators often remain unknown, also because they are based in countries outside the USA. It is therefore difficult to take action against it, it is said in several articles.
The “OMR” portal gives several examples of fabricated death reports and is of the opinion that the phenomenon is taking on a previously “unprecedented size” thanks to the new possibilities of artificial intelligence.
Sources:OMR,”Los Angeles Times“, “Daily Mail“, YouTube / Cumulus Podcasts, YouTube / “Wired”
Read at stern+: People don’t like to talk about death in professional life, where everyone is supposed to function. Grief coach Cordelia Noe wants to change that. A conversation about the questions that become important after a loss: When and how can those who are grieving return to work? And: What can colleagues do for those who are grieving?