"Fresh fruits delivered directly from the mountain"...I ordered it after looking at the photo, but it was fake.

Capture the screen of Naver Smart Store

Recently, a case in which an online shopping mall sold an image made of artificial intelligence (AI) as if it were a real photo has been revealed, sparking controversy.

Company A, a mail order company based in Nam-gu, Busan, has been selling fruits in online shopping malls such as Naver's "Smart Store" and Kakao Talk's "Shopping" until recently.

The shopping mall emphasized that the fruit was fresh by directly dealing with the actual farm owner in the mountain area.

At the same time, he promoted the winning history of the product as well as photos of farmers who harvested the fruit themselves.

However, all of these photos turned out to be synthetic images made with artificial intelligence (AI). The award history was also debunked.

In the shopping mall review section, complaints from consumers such as "I think I was cheated to see you use AI photos to sell even the name of a farmer who doesn't even exist," and "I'm offended that it seems to mock consumers."

The company sold so much that it had more than 900 reviews, but the sale was suspended due to consumer complaints and suspicions that it was a false advertisement.

Reporter Park Sun-young of Digital News Team