As families desperately seek to find missing loved ones and communities grapple with immeasurable losses of both life and property in the wake of Hurricane Helene, AI slop scammers appear to be capitalizing on the moment for personal gain.
A Facebook account called “Coastal Views” usually shares calmer AI imagery of nature-filled beachside scenes. The account’s banner image showcases a signpost reading “OBX Live,” OBX being shorthand for North Carolina’s Outer Banks islands.
But starting this weekend, the account shifted its approach dramatically, as first flagged by a social media user on X.
Instead of posting “photos” of leaping dolphins and sandy beaches, the account suddenly started publishing images of flooded mountain neighborhoods, submerged houses, and dogs sitting on top of roofs.
But instead of spreading vital information to those affected by the natural disaster, or at the very least sharing real photos of the destruction, the account is seemingly trying to use AI to cash in on all the attention the hurricane has been getting.
I knew it was this guy just from the headlines. He’s tricked the media in the past with the fake beach pictures after hurricanes/nor’easterns… also flooded the market around here with fake sunsets and dolphins, etc. and has really hurt the livelihood of some local artists because a lot of people can’t tell they are fakes. He’s another provoquer and seeing this make the news will inspire him to keep making more fakes.
check on your boomer relatives. is it just me or can any other people immediately tell an AI photo because of the lighting and Depth of field is always wrong? Like it’s always off.
For me it’s simple rule, if nobody tells the sources or credits, it’s not even worthy to analyze it and cross check the news. The worst thing is that even “reputable media agencies” like reuters and bloomberg use heavily “anonymous sources”. Very often used as propaganda purposes
This is bizarre to me. There’s plenty of actual pictures of hurrican devastation.
If I can pump out fake flood pictures, I can convince a couple million Americans that none of the flood images are real. That it’s ALL AI generated. Thus I can make roughly $100k on ad impressions and further convince people that climate change is a hoax.
Woah! Comment “Amen”
Amen.
Amen!
Yeah but actual journalism is a cost center
Just generate images and text from the general idea and you are good
Yea, but if you have your own OC devastation, you can broadcast your gofundme scam or whatever.
I read this recently (quoted in the article too). It was fascinating and explains the « why » :
Paywalled
Guess we’ll never know! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(I too, was disappointed to get a little ways in before hitting that same wall myself)
Well that explains a lot!
