The wise old monk Yang Mun has millions of followers to his social media accounts and sells e-books on “the wisdom of ancient Chinese philosophy” through his website.

He is an influencer for today’s turbulent times. He is also an AI generated fake.

Social media influencers beware, AI is coming for your revenue stream.

This wellness fake spiritual advisor is already taking wellness revenue via subscriptions and book sales. At this stage he does nto seem to have any commercial endorsements.

The Asian monk, in an orange or brown robe, sometimes with an ancient book in front of him, sits cross legged in a Chinese style garden or inside a Buddhist temple sprouting his wisdom. The wisdom is “not a spell,” but a “philosophy” for life: “I am safe now, No danger now, Body is here,” is his mantra.

Forget the chaos of the world, don’t try to do anyting about it, don’t try to solve the trade issues, stop governments from killing their citizens or negotiate cease fire agreements between warring nations. Fake Yang Mun advises: “Most of your suffering does not come from what is happening, it comes from resistance to what is happening…You fight the moment, you argue with reality… peace is not found by fixing everything.”

The monk, who has millions of followers across his various social media profiles, appears to be targeting Americans with his philosophy, judging by some of the hashtags that include terms like #usahealth.

All of his videos are entirely AI-generated, created with Google software, confirmed by Google’s AI detector, SynthID.

A Eurovision News investigation examined the page’s About Me page, which adresses the question  “Is Yang Mun real?” i

“Yes. Yang Mun represents a real wellness philosophy and authentic teachings. Voice enhancement tools are used only to make the message clearer and accessible to people around the world,” says the FAQ page.

But SynthID shows that the visuals are entirely watermarked as Google-made AI — and more than just “voice enhancement tools” have been used, according to the Eurovision News investigation by Maria Flannery.

“The huge numbers of followers accumulated by the Yang Mun brand suggest that many are not aware that he is AI-generated. Others may not care; his sentiments are motivational, inspirational, and relatively vague. But this deceptive content represents a significant income stream for the creators,” says Flannery’s report.

The investigation has identified Yang Mun’s creator as “Shalev Hani, who describes himself on LinkedIn as a ‘Digital Creator & AI Storyteller’ based in Israel.”

Mainstream religions are also grappling with the developments in AI. In 2024, an AI “priest” called Father Justin designed to answer faith questions sparked backlash and led to his ‘defrocking’ and the removal of all references to him being a priest. A recent BBC article explores the more about how AI chatbots are being used “to talk to god.”

Verification experts have been diligent in trying to identify fake news content in recent years to keep responsible publishers and broadcasters from being tricked by deep fakes. Now AI fakes are also turning to wellness and other influencer categories to flood the space with AI generated content faster than human influencers can match.

Artificial Intelligence is one of the themes for this year’s World Radio Day. The theme explores ways to use AI in radio responsibly and ethically, but also allows responsible publishers and broadcasters to call out the unethical use of AI and to strengthen the bond radio broadcasters have with their audiences.

_{The main picture above is a screen shot of an AI generated fake monk. No other content in this report has used AI. This publication has committed to disclosing whenever we use anything generated by AI.}