According to AP, 227 people have been killed in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which has caused sweeping devastation across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.
It has become the deadliest mainland hurricane since Katrina in 2005, and there has been no shortage of photographs from communities affected by the extreme flooding, mudslides, and winds up to 60 miles per hour.
However, in an alarming call back to Kellyanne Conway’s fictitious ‘Bowling Green massacre’, a number of right wing American social media users and politicians have been offering their sympathy to an AI generated girl and her puppy, blaming the Biden-Harris administration for failing children in the crisis.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah, famous for his extreme U-turn in support of Donald Trump, posted the fake image on ‘X’, formerly Twitter, writing, "Caption this photo," appearing to invite his followers to aim their criticism at the current administration.
Based Senator Mike Lee deleted this. Because someone told him this viral MAGA photo is AI and not Kamala abandoning kids and puppies. pic.twitter.com/DhXZB9j9k6October 3, 2024
Lee deleted the picture after users pointed out that he'd fallen for a false image, the original version of which appears to have begun its circulation on the Trump web forum Patriots.win.
Many users immediately noticed the image was AI generated, and rightly so as it’s hardly an impressive creation, with its blurred lines, very fake looking dog fur, and arguably uncharacteristically large hands.
Some ‘X’ users however, have left the image up.
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One user still has the image up at time of writing, writing:
"This is a picture of a little girl and her puppy ….. a victim of Hurricane Helene ….. it’s heart breaking Mayorkas said FEMA is broke they used all the money on illegals to relocate them into America."
Buzz Patterson, columnist for the conservative blog RedState also left the fake image up, with the caption:
"Our government has failed us again."
Our government has failed us again. pic.twitter.com/oFMy2y8YJOOctober 3, 2024
Similarly, Amy Kremer, RNC National Committeewoman for the Georgia GOP and co-founder of Women for Trump, also left the image up, writing:
"This picture has been seared into my mind. My heart hurts."
Despite being informed the image was entirely false, Kremer publicly doubled down:
"Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter. It is seared into my mind forever. There are people going through much worse than what is shown in this pic. So I’m leaving it because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now."
Despite the positives of AI technology slowly becoming apparent, it is arguably legitimising misinformation. Individuals such as Kremer are knowingly promoting fake images to highlight human suffering.
It is in a similar vein to the recent 'All Eyes On Rafah' image used on social media to draw attention to the Israeli airstrikes on Rafah, despite the prevalence of displaced Palestinian civilians in the area. The post had over 46 million Instagram re-shares, even among celebrities who hadn't mentioned Gaza before, drawing criticism that people were deliberately shielding themselves from the real suffering.
If we're willing to knowingly favor AI generated images of disasters and conflicts, even when a camera is in almost every pocket, why not bring back some real creativity and send portrait artists into disaster zones?
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