From The Guardian
Republicans fooled by AI-generated image of US airman rescued in Iran
By Edward Helmore
Republican politicians were hoaxed over the weekend by an image purporting to be a downed US warplane crew member rescued by military special forces in Iran on Saturday, igniting a call for a national “crash course in media literacy”.
Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general and a US Senate candidate, and Mike Lawler, a New York representative, were all caught out for “liking” a fake picture of the airman, who has not been publicly identified.
Donald Trump on Monday afternoon was scheduled to hold a news conference in which he was expected to discuss details of the rescue mission.
The AI-generated image that fooled the Republican politicos was shared by a pro-Trump X account. The supposed airman is shown surrounded by smiling military members, with a US flag draped across his lap...
A fake image of federal agents surrounding the Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti with one holding a gun against his head was widely shared after a border patrol officer killed Pretti in January. Fakes were also created after Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent days earlier.
“Details can get mistaken or altered in a way that is dangerous in these very volatile situations,” Hany Farid, a University of California digital forensics expert, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “In the fog of war and in conflict, it is just really messy, and we are simply adding noise to an already complicated and difficult situation...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
