Fact-Check: Amitabh Bachchan Didn’t Voice This Viral Video About India
The video carries AI-synthesised audio, and was not narrated by actor Amitabh Bachchan.
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A video, which discusses various aspects of Indian society, is being widely shared, claiming that veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan gave his voice for the video.
What does the video say?: In the video, one can see visuals and hear related audio, where man asks about the humanity left in our country, questioning the viability of the idea of a "family" that India presents on the global stage.
Those sharing this video have claimed that actor Amitabh Bachchan lent his voice to narrate the video, while urging Indian Hindus to unite.
The Quint also received queries for this claim's verification on its WhatsApp tipline.
(Archives of more posts on social media can be seen here and here.)
Is it true?: No, the claim is false.
Several audio detection tools stated that the voice heard in the video had been manipulated with, or was made using a voice clone based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools.
The video carried a watermark.
(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)
Taking a cue from this, we looked for accounts with similar names on social media platforms, which led us to a Facebook page which made similar videos.
While we did not find the viral video here, we saw that this page shared several pro-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) videos made in a similar style, using clips and images with edited visuals, some of which can be seen here, here, and here.
All of these edited videos also included the same watermark we saw in the viral video.
We saw the same watermark on this page.
(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)
What about the audio?: We shared the video with ConTrails AI, a Bangalore-based startup, that has its own AI tools for detection of audio and video spoofs, for an analysis of the audio part of the claim.
Their tool generated a report, which mentioned that the audio was manipulated.
Contrails AI detected manipulation in the audio.
(Source: Contrails AI/Screenshot)
It also generated a graph which consistently showed values indicating audio manipulation.
The graph strongly showed manipulation.
(Source: Contrails AI/Screenshot)
The Quint's WebQoof team is a part of the Deepfake Analysis Unit (DAU) of the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA), who also checked this video.
The DAU's check through Loccus.ai' voice detection tool, for the first 30 seconds of the video, showed strong indications of AI-related audio manipulation.
It showed stronger scores for the likelihood of the audio being AI-generated throughout this time period.
However, for the last 10 seconds of the video, the tool leaned more towards the audio being an authentic and not synthesised .
(Note: Swipe to view results)
(Source: DAU/MCA/Altered by The Quint)
(Source: DAU/MCA/Altered by The Quint)
(Source: DAU/MCA/Altered by The Quint)
TrueMedia's AI detection tool also said that it detected a substantial amount of audio manipulation in the viral video.
TrueMedia detected "substantial evidence."
(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)
Its audio detection analysers found substantial evidence that the audio was generated using AI tools.
TrueMedia was certain that the audio was created or manipulated using AI.
(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)
Conclusion: A video with AI-generated audio of a man speaking has gone viral with the false claim that actor Amitabh Bachchan lent his voice to the video.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
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