A deepfake video of Nvidia’s CEO despatched hundreds of viewers to a crypto rip-off

Nvidia’s GPU Know-how Convention isn’t making many waves for gamer or PC {hardware} crowds this 12 months, maybe as a result of it appears to be completely considering boosting {hardware} for “AI” and information facilities. So it’s nearly ironic {that a} phony model of the keynote livestream reportedly relied on generative “AI” to faux CEO Jensen Huang and ship viewers to a cryptocurrency rip-off.

A YouTube channel calling itself “NVIDIA LIVE” began a livestream shortly after the actual Nvidia occasion started, which customers on Twitter reported was a deepfake video of the CEO selling a “crypto mass adoption occasion.” A QR code was posted on display that despatched viewers to a web site that may reportedly flip their cryptocurrency round for a revenue (as an alternative of simply stealing it, which was nearly actually what was truly occurring).

Tom’s {Hardware} quotes the faux Huang: “We’re suspending the principle speak for only a second to announce one thing actually particular, a crypto mass adoption occasion that ties instantly into Nvidia’s mission to speed up human progress.” A speech-to-text transcript of the faux video rambles on with cryptobro buzzwords earlier than claiming that any supported cryptocurrency despatched to the linked pockets can be transformed into Bitcoin and returned. That will imply Nvidia can be making a gift of billions of {dollars} to nameless nobodies, apparently for no purpose apart from “human progress.” So yeah, even in the event you couldn’t see by means of the deepfake video or voice, you’d must be a number of GDDR modules wanting an RTX 5090 to fall for it.

Reportedly the faux stream had nearly 100,000 viewers at one level, greater than eight occasions that of the actual Nvidia livestream, due to being increased in YouTube search outcomes for not less than some portion of time whereas the actual keynote was happening. Precisely how many individuals had been suckered isn’t clear. The video is lengthy gone, after all, although the small-stakes YouTube person who reportedly hosted it’s nonetheless seen.

Within the precise keynote, the actual Huang was saying a billion-dollar funding in former telephone big Nokia and waxing about humanoid robots. GTC moved from its traditional San Jose residence to Washington, D.C., apparently within the hopes of a bit of drive-by lobbying to the Trump administration. There’s one thing amusing about an Nvidia CEO’s picture getting used to idiot individuals right into a crypto rip-off, since Nvidia chips had been the {hardware} driving the crypto bubble, and certainly at the moment are being utilized in a lot the identical means for generative “AI.”