More attention is being given to suspected footage that shows no signs of A.I. tampering, such as video of the director of a bombed hospital in Gaza giving a news conference. The Israeli military released a recording of a wiretapped conversation between two Hamas members, but some listeners believe it was spoofed audio. In an attempt to determine the truth from A.I., social media users are turning to detection tools, although their reliability has been questioned.
During the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared a series of images claiming they were “horrifying photos of babies murdered and burned” by Hamas. One of these images was amplified by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who was accused of spreading A.I.-generated content. Some social media users claimed to have proof that the image of the baby was fake, based on a detection tool’s identification of the image as “generated by AI.” However, the detection tool later stated that its result was inconclusive due to the image being compressed and altered.
AI detection services can potentially be helpful as part of a larger suite of tools, but they should not be treated as the final word on content authenticity. Initiatives and companies are exploring tactics that would identify the source and history of media files, which could help restore confidence in the quality of content. However, there are challenges, such as the ease of removing or evading existing watermarking technology.
For now, social media users looking to deceive the public are relying less on photorealistic A.I. images and more on old footage from previous conflicts or disasters, which they falsely portray as the current situation in Gaza. This highlights the tendency of people to believe information that confirms their beliefs or evokes strong emotions, regardless of its accuracy.
