In Times of War, AI and Social Media Create Real Stupidity

“Just because some people are fueled by drama doesn’t mean you have to attend the performance.” – Cheryl Richardson

As I read this quote, my brain made the immediate link to the Palestinian-Israeli war that has been taking place for almost a week. It’s as if the media wasn’t enough in spreading invalid news but now AI decided to hop on board and generate images and videos of no decency to be able to get support from the rest of the world depending on the side that generated them. This is the story of technology and war propaganda.

Misinformation is happening from both sides on social media.

A video circulating online that portrays military engagements in conflict between Israel and Hamas are in fact clips from a PC game called Arma 3. On Tuesday Czech game studio Bohemia Interactive stated that its game was being “falsely used as footage” from the Gaza conflict.

Again, on the other hand conservative columnist and commentator Ben Shapiro publicly shared online an image of a “burnt Jewish baby” on X.  Through several investigations this image turned out to be AI generated.

This week, X was called out for easing the process of the spread of misinformation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a blunder blamed on Elon Musk’s disintegration of the service’s trust and safety team and the removal of manual verification of verified accounts.

Meta was given 24 hours to stop the spread of misinformation and they did abide by the EU’s regulations in their bid to fight the conundrum that is technology and war propaganda, but X is still wondering if they should or not.

This article is not in support of anyone, but it supports the facts, and only facts, that both Israelis and Hamas are taking what’s happening out of context. The fact that they are using technology in creating more trauma than what is going on should be banned as soon as possible.

The tragedy of the war is enough, we do not need AI generated images and videos to add to the confusion.

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