Artificial intelligence-generated images of Titan submersible wreckage flood social media

Fraudsters are taking advantage of the explosion of the Titan submersible to distribute fake images generated by artificial intelligence that claim to show debris on the seabed.

Here's What We Know

On 22 June, the US Coast Guard announced the discovery of the Titan wreck, which had been lost on an expedition to the Titanic four days earlier. All five passengers on the submarine were declared dead.

There are no official photos of the wreckage, but fake images generated by artificial intelligence have begun to circulate online.

On the same day, several Twitter and Facebook accounts shared photos claiming to show Titan wreckage on the ocean floor.

But if you look closely, the images are very different from each other. For example, the wreckage looks more like a destroyed rocket engine than an underwater vehicle. Also, the images are high definition and perfectly lit, even though they are at a depth of about 3,800 metres.

Other inconsistencies include the fact that several of the images show the sea surface at the top, as well as coral growing over the wreckage.

Despite the obvious flaws, the images have received up to 480,000 views from Twitter users.

The origin of the fake images is unknown. It's likely that some of them were created by the Prince of Deepfakes parody account, which had already used the Midjourney AI generator.

Source: PCMag.