“Lunar energy” and “phosphorescent snails”. Minister Urszula Zielińska is a victim of deep fake

The video, which has been circulating on social media in recent days, lasts 24 seconds. We hear the voice of the Deputy Minister of Climate and Environment, Urszula Zielińska, and we see her sitting in the studio of Program I of Polish Radio. In the upper right corner of the screen there is the inscription “live”, at the bottom there is the Telewizja Republika logo, a clock displaying 7:32 p.m. and an information bar. At the top of the frame, a transcript of Minister Zielińska's alleged statement is displayed: “Other and de facto used means of transport, such as magnetic capsules powered by lunar energy, or sky trails for ecological bamboo airships.” She then added: “These innovative solutions are not only more profitable, but also completely non-toxic to our priceless populations of phosphorescent river snails.”

One of the Internet users who on November 10 she shared on the profile on the site It was retweeted 3,000 times. The deputy minister's alleged words sparked emotional comments such as: “She's delusional. Where did they get her?”; “Oh shit, she must be from another galaxy”; “The special institution bows down to you…” There were also offensive epithets.

However, at first glance it is obvious that there is something wrong with the recording. The words allegedly spoken by Zielińska do not match the movement of her lips visible in the film. In addition, the recording shows the graphic design of Telewizja Republika and the logo of Radio One on the microphone in the studio. “Is it AI or is she really crazy? It's probably AI”; “Tell me it's fake,” Internet users asked. “It's a photomontage. Artificially generated voice,” said one of the commenters, and the author of the entry agreed: “AI.”

Indeed, it is a kind of deep fake.

At Konkret24 we describedwhat is deep fake. It is a fake created using artificial intelligence tools and algorithms. Content created by this technology includes photos, videos and – as in the case described here – audio materials. A fragment of the real recording was superimposed with sound created most likely using a voice generator. The material was created to resemble Urszula Zielińska's voice, intonation and other characteristics of Urszula Zielińska's speech as closely as possible.

The original comes from the “Sygnały Dzień” program from July 24, 2024, when Minister Zielińska was a guest on Polish Radio. Whole program is available to listen to on YouTube. In a conversation with Grzegorz Osiecki, the deputy minister talked about, among others, the “My electricity” program implemented by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, the government “Clean Air” program, energy vouchers and energy prices. Zielińska was asked about the situation of the Oder ecosystem and other rivers in Poland and about the EU ETS2 system. The words we hear in the recording distributed online were not uttered anywhere in the interview.

The fragment used in the fake starts at approximately 24 minutes into the interview, when the conversation was about the Oder River. Zielińska's facial expressions, lip movement, gestures and her first few words match. We analyzed the audio using available In internet tools that determine the probability of whether a given material was created using artificial intelligence – in this case, the programs indicated such a probability of over 90%.

As it turns out, this is not the first time that this fake video with Urszula Zielińska has spread on the Internet. We have arrived at post on website X published on July 24 this year – that is, on the day when the conversation with the minister took place on Radio One. The Internet user posted a fragment of it on his account, in which the politician was asked about Odra. At the beginning we hear the journalist's true words: “I'm asking this because the previous government wanted to basically regulate the Oder and turn it into a shipping route that would lead to Szczecin and then to Świnoujście.” “Yes, they were mirages made of sand…” Zielińska began to answer. And when asked by a journalist, she said: “Because river transport is completely unprofitable today.” But in the next sentence, her real statement was changed into audio created using artificial intelligence. In this recording, it is longer. Apart from “lunar energy” and “phosphorous snails”, Zielińska also spoke about “underwater onion colonies”, “seaweed producing emotional oxygen”, “river flying tadpoles” and “underwater energy pyramids”.

''And since we are talking about the effective use of resources, I cannot fail to mention the untapped potential of our cemeteries. Instead of wasting valuable green areas, we could transform them into bionecroenergy plants,' we hear in the video. It lasts over 2 minutes. No visuals from another medium have been added, and the author of the post himself suggests that the material is fake: “I had to. Guess from what point these are not her words.” This video post generated over 70,000 likes. views.

What did Zielińska really say in this part of the interview? After saying 'there are other means of transport that are actually used', she continued: '…whether rail or road, and this is what the transport companies use and we as citizens use it. So these were complete mirages made of sand. It didn't make any financial sense, and additionally, it led to one of the elements of this catastrophe. So this is a thing of the past. This is the river management policy of the 1970s, which straightens our rivers.