A photograph of an explosion next to the Pentagon, apparently generated by Artificial Intelligence, generated an earthquake in the financial markets on Monday. The image began circulating widely on social media on Monday morning (afternoon in Europe), sending various stock markets reeling in fear of an attack.
At 10:00 a.m. on the East Coast, the S
The fake photo, which first appeared on Facebook, showed a large plume of smoke near the Defense Department headquarters in Virginia. It soon spread to Twitter accounts by thousands of users, including the Russia Today channel and the ZeroHedge financial news site.
The Arlington Police Department, where the Pentagon is located, quickly communicated through its social networks that there had been no explosion or incident and there was no danger.
As the denials spread, the Twitter accounts that had shared the image began deleting their tweets or posting corrections. Some accounts that also posted the fake photo were suspended.
While the origin of the image remains unclear, speculation that it was generated by AI is fueled by concerns that emerging technologies that make it easier to create images and other content will speed the spread of misinformation.
On Facebook, the account that first posted the fake photo, along with other posts related to the QAnon conspiracy group, had a “false information†tag attached to its original post. Facebook blocked access to the post, saying the image had been “verified by independent fact checkers.”
