Hurricane Helene is wreaking havoc in the US. Almost all the photos that are circulating are generated by AI

The photo is shocking. A girl in a life jacket cries inconsolably as she hugs a small puppy aboard a boat. Around it there is what looks like a flood caused by some natural disaster.

It looks like a real image, but it is not. It is an image generated by artificial intelligence.

This image, as indicated on Garbage Daywent viral on Facebook, and from there it also ended up going viral on other social networks such as X or YouTube. Among those who spread it were supporters of Donald Trump.

They are using the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene to obtain political gaincriticizing the efforts of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and propagating all types of images and fake news to undermine said rescue and aid efforts for those affected by the tragedy.

Finding the origin of this and other images is practically impossible, and fighting the spread of this false information is proving to be almost impossible. On Facebook they have added labels to this and other images indicating that they are “altered photos” and that we should check that they are real before trusting them.

However, the images have been disseminated, for example, on pages with the hashtag #NorthCarolina—North Carolina, one of the states affected by the hurricane—which served to provide useful and legitimate information about the disaster.

That page, which many affected people are probably consulting, is now filling up with conspiracy theories. For example this which indicates that the floods were not caused by the hurricane, but by human action due to some issue related to lithium deposits and AI development companies. EITHER this other one who accuses the government.

The worrying thing is not only that: it is that despite all these warnings, people keep sharing the images even though they know they may not be real. For example, Amy Kremer of the RNC (Republican National Committee) did it.

Her post on X was updated with a community note indicating that it was a deepfake, but she kept the image claiming that it didn’t matter and that “it’s emblematic of the trauma and pain that people are suffering right now.”

This is not the first time this has happened on social media, and it certainly won’t be the last. The problem is precisely that: that probably all this interested generation of false content will be increasingly credible, and Facebook does not seem being able to do a lot to veto or control it. Neither can X fight the problem too much, although the community notes certainly help.

And yet those warnings may come too late. Deepfakes are effectively positioned as a powerful weapon to influence public opinion, and the platforms on which they are spread are not prepared at the moment to fight this problem.

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