AI images of Maduro capture reap millions of views on social media
Minutes after Donald Trump announced a “large-scale strike” against Venezuela early on Saturday morning, false and misleading AI-generated images began flooding social media,There were fake photos of Nicolás Maduro being escorted off a plane by US law enforcement agents, images of jubilant Venezuelans pouring into the streets of Caracas and videos of missiles raining down on the city – all fake,The fabricated content intermixed with real videos and photos of US aircraft flying over the Venezuelan capital and explosions lighting up the dark sky,A lack of verified information about the raid coupled with AI tools’ rapidly advancing capabilities made discerning fact from fiction about the incursion on Caracas difficult,By the time Trump posted a verified photo of Maduro blindfolded, handcuffed and dressed in grey sweatpants aboard the USS Iwo Jima warship, the fake images with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents had already gone viral.
Across X, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, the AI photos have been seen and shared millions of times, according to the factchecking site NewsGuard,Vince Lago, the mayor of Coral Gables, Florida, posted the fake photo of Maduro being escorted by the DEA agents to Instagram, saying that the Venezuelan president “is the leader of a narco-terrorist organization threatening our country”,Lago’s post received more than 1500 likes and is still up as of this writing,Tools for detecting manipulated content, such as reverse image search and AI-detection sites, can help assess whether online images are accurate, but they are inconsistent,Sofia Rubinson, a senior editor who studies misinformation and conspiracy theories for NewsGuard, told the Guardian that the fake images of Caracas are similar to actual events, which makes it even more difficult to figure out what is real.
“Many of the AI-generated and out-of-context visuals that are currently flooding social media do not drastically distort the facts on the ground,” Rubinson said,“Still, the use of AI-generated fabrications and dramatic, out-of-context footage is being used to fill gaps in real-time reporting and represents another tactic in the misinformation wars – and one that is harder for fact checkers to expose because the visuals often approximate reality,”NewsGuard released a report on Monday afternoon that identified five fabricated and out-of-context photos as well as two videos of the military operation in Venezuela,One AI-generated photo shows a soldier posing next to Maduro, who has a black hood over his head,An out-of-context video shows a US special forces helicopter descending on a supposed Venezuelan military site – the actual footage was taken in June at the Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina.
NewsGuard said the seven misleading photos and videos it identified have now garnered more than 14m views on X alone,Other footage from past events is also being circulated online and passed off as part of Saturday’s strike,Laura Loomer, a far-right influencer and Trump confidant, posted footage of a poster of the Venezuelan president on X saying that “the people of Venezuela are ripping down posters of Maduro”,According to Wired, the footage is from 2024,Loomer has since removed the post.
Another rightwing influencer and conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, posted on X an aerial video of thousands of people cheering in Caracas.“Millions of Venezuelans flooded the streets of Caracas and other major cities in celebration of the ouster of Communist dictator Nicholas Maduro,” Jones wrote.“Now we need to see the same type of energy here on the HomeFront!”The video, which is still up, has reached more than 2.2m views.Comments on the post from Community Notes, X’s crowdsource moderation tool, say that the video is “at least 18 months old”.
A reverse image search of the video shows that the footage is actually from a protest in Caracas after Maduro’s disputed presidential win in July 2024.Grok, the platform’s AI chatbot, also disputes the timeline of Jones’ video, saying: “Current sources show no such celebrations in Caracas today, but pro-Maduro gatherings instead.”Meta, X and TikTok did not respond to requests for comment.
UK housebuilding in deepest slump since 2020 lockdowns; Warner Bros rejects ‘inferior’ $108bn Paramount hostile bid – as it happened
Newsflash: Britain’s construction sector continued to shrink in December, as housing, commercial and civil engineering activity suffered sharp falls again.Data provider S&P Global has reported that activity across the UK construction sector, and new orders, both fell again last month.Housebuilding and commercial construction work both decreased at the fastest rate since May 2020, when the Covid-19 lockdown forced building sites to close, S&P Global’s survey of purchasing managers at UK construction firms shows.That highlights the government’s struggle to hit its housebuilding targets.Civil engineering was the weakest-performing category of construction activity in December; it also shrank, but not by as much as in November
Venezuela to continue supplying oil to US ‘indefinitely’, White House says
The US plans to control Venezuela’s oil sales “indefinitely” after laying claim to 50m barrels of blockaded crude and seizing a Russian oil tanker linked to the South American country.The White House already plans to sell up to $3bn (£2.2bn) worth of Venezuelan crude stranded in tankers and storage facilities into the oversupplied global market after the American military’s capture of Nicolás Maduro.It confirmed on Wednesday that it also planned to retain control of all sales of future crude production from Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said the US would take payment for the oil and use the proceeds “to benefit the Venezuelan people”
Elon Musk’s xAI announces it has raised $20bn amid backlash over Grok deepfakes
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company has raised $20bn in its latest funding round, the startup announced Tuesday, even as its marquee chatbot Grok faces backlash over generating sexualized, nonconsensual images of women and underage girls.xAI’s Series E funding round featured big-name investors, including Nvidia, Fidelity Management and Resource Company, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, and Valor Equity Partners – the private investment firm of Musk’s longtime friend and former Doge member Antonio Gracias. The funding round exceeded its initial $15bn target, according to xAI’s press release. The company touted Grok’s image-generation abilities in the announcement of its latest funding round.xAI lacks the prominence of its rival OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and has continually drawn criticism for generating misinformation, antisemitic content and now potentially illegal sexual material
AI consciousness is a red herring in the safety debate | Letters
The concern expressed by Yoshua Bengio that advanced AI systems might one day resist being shut down deserves careful consideration (AI showing signs of self-preservation and humans should be ready to pull plug, says pioneer, 30 December). But treating such behaviour as evidence of consciousness is dangerous: it encourages anthropomorphism and distracts from the human design and governance choices that actually determine AI behaviour.Many systems can protect their continued operation. A laptop’s low-battery warning is a form of self-preservation in this sense, yet no one takes it as evidence that the laptop wants to live: the behaviour is purely instrumental, without experience or awareness. Linking self-preservation to consciousness reflects a human tendency to ascribe intentions and feelings to artefacts and not any intrinsic consciousness
Former Bengals and Texas receiver Jordan Shipley severely burned in ranch accident
Former Texas star and NFL receiver Jordan Shipley is being treated in hospital after suffering severe burns in an accident on his ranch near his home town of Burnet, Texas.According to a statement from his family, Shipley was operating a machine when it caught fire. Although the 40-year-old was able to free himself from the machine “it was not before sustaining severe burns on his body in the process,” read the statement. “He was able to get to one of his workers on the ranch who drove him to a local hospital. He was then care-flighted to Austin, where he remains in critical but stable condition
Injured Stokes to spend final day of Ashes tour watching from SCG pavilion
Ben Stokes is set to spend the final day of this Ashes tour watching on from the old pavilion at the SCG and hoping for a miracle in his absence after seeing yet another Test series cut short by injury.The all-rounder had worked hard to get through all five Tests in Australia only to fall at the final hurdle, limping off 10 balls into his opening spell on the fourth morning in apparent distress. An England spokesperson later confirmed it was an issue with his right abductor (groin).Stokes did bat later in the day, emerging at No 8 but falling for one after struggling to move at the crease. The upshot is that when England come to defend a target on the final day – their lead was 119 overnight, eight wickets down – they will do so without their seam-bowling captain
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