Clip of Bill Gates 'supporting jailed Pakistan ex-PM Khan' shows AI signs

The video was shared in a June 29, 2024 post on X that has since been viewed over 150,000 times.

It appeared to show Gates as saying: "Imran Khan is an excellent leader. When Imran Khan comes out of jail, I will go to meet him because Imran Khan is not a thief like others."

The Urdu-language caption to the post repeated the claim but incorrectly referred to the Microsoft founder as the "owner" of the South Korean electronics giant Samsung (archived link).

The video also contained various clips of Khan, who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, when he was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote after falling out with the king-making military establishment.

As opposition leader, 72-year-old Khan led an unprecedented campaign of defiance before becoming tangled in slews of court cases he claims have been orchestrated to prevent his return to power (archived link).

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Screenshot of the false post taken November 5, 2024

Similar false posts also shared the video on X here, here and here.

Gates visited Pakistan and met Khan when the latter was still prime minister in February 2022 to discuss polio eradication the country.

But there have been no official reports Gates issued comments about the former leader's jailing as of November 11, 2024.

Signs of AI

Moreover, reverse image searches of keyframes on Google found the circulating clip resembles an interview of Gates published on YouTube by the American television programme CBS Mornings on April 2, 2020 (archived link).

In the video, he could be seen discussing the coronavirus pandemic, the US economy and the likelihood of the world facing a new health threat.

Nowhere in the 27-minute clip did Gates mention Imran Khan. 

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the CBS interview footage (right) with corresponding elements highlighted:

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Screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the CBS interview footage (right)

An analysis of the circulating clip also found visual inconsistencies. For example, at the two- second mark Gates appears to say Khan is an "excellent leader", but his lip movements are not in sync with the words.

Hany Farid, a professor from the University of California, Berkeley who specialises in the analysis of digital images, told AFP: "I have analyzed this video with two models trained to distinguish real from AI-generated or AI-manipulated video. These models confidently classify this video as AI-manipulated."

Farid added there are "obvious visual cues" including a "desynchronization between the mouth movement and voice, and obvious visual artifacts on the face that are the result of the manipulation of the mouth region."

AFP has repeatedly debunked AI-related misinformation.