Be wary of false Obituaries

Question

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-27/the-obit-piracy-scam/103633058
Came across this news article which has consequences for genealogists. Apparently there are people using AI to create false obituaries for popular people. This means we have to be vigilant in using information from obituaries as a source of information. Particularly for living people as it may lead to a living profile being made public instead of unlisted.
The main targets seem to be people who are popular items on the internet. The aim being to create clicks and hence revenue for the fraudsters creating the profiles.

Comments

Thanks Paul, Another reason to check sources!

---

Thank you, Paul, for this information. I'm just horrified.

Answer 1

Interesting to consider the ramifications: First, today - I just need to be careful with current/contemporary obits and verify with independent sources. But older stuff should be more reliable - still needs to be checked when you can, because we've all seen obits with errors - but at least they are not totally made up.

Second - What happens 50 or 100 years from now if/when those false obits are still accessible on the web, and people doing research come across them? Because of our collaborative model, I foresee WikiTree being the "go to" place where people find accurate info with sources, but "other sites unnamed" will be fully populated with death dates and info from these false obits!

I wonder if, in the future, AI will become useful enough to detect and quarantine AI created junk?

Thanks Paul, for the heads up!

Answer 2

Yeah - this is becoming a problem - see this article about it ☹️ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-27/the-obit-piracy-scam/103633058?utm_source=abc_news_web&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_web

I guess it means we just need to more research and verification of sources to be doubly sure.