
A BBC investigation has uncovered a global network of YouTube channels with AI-generated “doctors” who are defrauding older people by passing off false medical advice as professional advice, leading to the refusal of genuine treatment and potentially fatal consequences.
AI-generated summary
The investigation began after the identification of 29 Portuguese-language YouTube channels with AI-generated “doctors” that received more than 70 million views. The BBC found instructions for creating such content in several languages and examined the impact on older viewers through comment analysis.
BBC investigation: how YouTube's AI "doctors" became a global business targeting older audiences
Author, Luis Fernando Toledo
Place of work, BBC Brazil Service
Published 2 hours ago
Reading time: 5 min
Cely Ferreira, 82, was watching YouTube when a doctor appeared on the screen and advised her to eat fruit to preserve her eyesight. The advice seemed quite plausible to her. But this was not a real medical channel, and the doctor himself did not exist - his face and voice were generated by artificial intelligence.
Although YouTube flagged the video as AI-generated, it received nearly 300,000 views and hundreds of comments. Ferreira told the BBC that, despite the markings, she was sure that this was a real doctor.
This is not an isolated case: the investigation identified 29 Portuguese-language channels using AI-generated “doctors” and with a total of at least 70 million views.
Similar content is distributed all over the world. BBC Brazil found at least 50 YouTube channels with instructions on how to create videos with AI doctors in different languages, including Portuguese, English, Hindi, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, German and Turkish.
The creators of such channels consider the elderly audience to be a profitable niche: in their opinion, older people have more free time to watch videos and enough money to buy advertised goods.
One real doctor whose image was used without permission warns that advice from fake doctors could have serious consequences and "cause fatal harm to older people".
Google, which owns YouTube video hosting, said that the platform’s rules also apply to content created with the help of AI; they prohibit medical misinformation that could cause serious harm in real life.
The formula for these videos is simple: a trustworthy person in a white coat warns in a calm, synthesized voice that a common product, medicine, or everyday habit can quietly threaten the health of older people. Then the audience is offered a supposedly undeservedly forgotten remedy.
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AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
YouTube will strengthen its flagging and removal policies for content featuring AI doctors posing as real doctors
Likely · Within months
Investigations may be initiated against the creators of fraudulent medical channels in Brazil and other countries
Possible · Within months

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