AI-generated Iran images are widespread. How do we know what to believe? |
The videos look authentic – and they are spreading like wildfire on social media. One, for example, shows Iranian missiles exploding upon the airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. Another shows US soldiers being held at gunpoint by Iranian military.
They aren’t real but – often made with the help of cutting-edge AI – they are wildly misleading. They may get debunked, but somehow that doesn’t make a dent.
“New fakes are popping up faster than they can be swatted down,” as CNN’s fact-checking reporter Daniel Dale put it, detailing the fakes mentioned above – just two among so many.
Meanwhile, legitimate photographs and images, even from reliable sources of news, can get branded as false or suspicious. In some cases, that’s a way to instill doubt and cause people to take the grim reality of war less seriously and to think of death and destruction as just one more video game.
The New York Times found itself forced to speak up this week after an organization charged online that a news image – depicting a large crowd of people in Tehran – showed “signs of digital manipulation” that suggested “copy-paste duplication”.
Not so, said a Times statement posted online.
“This is a genuine........