"Explosion near the Pentagon", the fake photo from artificial intelligence that shook the stock market

2023-05-23 18:25:16Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
"Explosion near the Pentagon", the fake photo from artificial
"Explosion near the Pentagon", the fake photo from artificial intelligence that shook the stock market

A fake image, created by artificial intelligence, quickly spread on social media on Monday, claiming that an explosion had taken place near the Pentagon.

The social media posts also caused a brief jolt in the stock market, as authorities rushed to clarify that no explosion had occurred and that the photo was fake.

But despite this, the photo with the claim that an explosion had taken place near the Pentagon was also distributed by the media including RT, a media company supported by the Russian government formerly known as "Russia Today".

This photo was also shared by a Twitter profile that bears the social media company's blue verification mark and falsely claimed to be affiliated with the Bloomberg news agency.

The rapid spread of the image prompted the Arlington County Fire Department in Virginia, near the Pentagon, to use social media to debunk the fake news.

"There is no explosion or incident near the Pentagon and there is no danger to the public," the Arlington County Fire Department said in a statement on Twitter.

Disinformation experts say the fake photo was likely created using artificial intelligence programs, which render increasingly realistic but often flawed images. As for this photo, experts say that there were inconsistencies with the real building, the surrounding fence, and other elements.

“Specifically, the grass and concrete 'melt' into each other, the fence is irregular, there's a strange black pole sticking out of the front of the sidewalk, but also parts of the fence. The windows in the building don't match the photos of the Pentagon that you can find on the Internet," says Hany Farid, a professor of computer science at the University of California.

Chirag Shah, another expert, warns that the detection of forgeries will not always be so obvious./ VOA


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