AI spy

A fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon went viral on Twitter yesterday morning, causing a brief dip in the US stock market before government officials confirmed it was a hoax.

💥 Here’s what happened: It’s unclear who initially tweeted out the fake image – but it was later posted by a verified account resembling Bloomberg News called “Bloomberg Feed,” as well as an account run by RT, a Russian state-media outlet with 3+ million followers.

At 10 am ET, as the image started to circulate widely, all three major US stock indexes, which had risen to start the day, began to fall. They dropped ~0.3% over the next half-hour, but recovered minutes after the Arlington, VA, fire department publicly confirmed the explosion was fake around 10:30 am.

• Officials have yet to officially verify whether the picture was created using AI, but experts say it carries several hallmarks of AI-generated images. For example: the columns on the building vary in size, and the fence appears to blend into the sidewalk in some places.

🤖 Zoom out: With new tech comes new (and sometimes unexpected) ways to manipulate and scam. A growing number of con artists are using AI programs that can imitate the voices of peoples’ loved ones or colleagues in an effort to obtain money or personal info – including an ongoing string of virtual kidnapping scams targeting Americans across the country, per FBI spokesperson Siobhan Johnson.