Ciara O'Rourke, PolitiFact, Poynter Institute; [AI-Fabricated] Image shows a photo of former President Donald Trump wading through floodwater after Hurricane Helene.
"Trump surveyed Hurricane Helene damage in Georgia, but not from deep floodwaters; this image is fake
Rachel Leingang , The Guardian; Hurricane Helene conspiracy theories collide with election misinformation
“Elon Musk, the owner of X and key Trump ally, claimed Fema was blocking flights trying to aid the area, calling it “belligerent government incompetence”. The transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, responded: “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”
An AI-generated image of a young girl holding a puppy, looking devastated as she sat in a boat in the rain, seemingly fleeing the flood waters, spread widely. It was rightly flagged as AI-generated, but some didn’t seem to care.
“This picture has been seared into my mind,” Amy Kremer, an RNC national committeewoman from Georgia, posted on X. She later added: “Y’all, I don’t know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter,” saying it was “emblematic” of the reality people were facing.
One myth amplified in the last few days suggests Fema is out of money because it has spent money on migrants instead, a claim that Trump and many of his allies have amplified. The story was on the cover of the New York Post.”
Huo Jingnan, NPR; Politically charged rumors and conspiracy theories about Helene flourish on X
"Emergency management researchers lament that the platform owned by Elon Musk, which was once considered a useful source of information in a disaster, is instead contributing to the chaos in Helene's wake.
The disaster became fodder for political attacks
The storm hit two swing states just a month before a close election, making criticisms about the response a tempting political line of attack.
On X, the top results for “Helene” have millions of views but are not always reliable...
Former President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats were withholding aid from Republican areas. Trump also falsely claimed that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp had not been able to speak to Biden, even though both confirmed they had spoken to one another.
There’s no evidence the federal government is withholding aid from affected states. The Republican governors of South Carolina and Georgia have praised the federal government’s support.
Other videos on X made wilder claims.
"Don’t worry guys, weather modification isn’t real! It’s just a coincidence that Hurricane Helene is one of the most devastating 'inland damage storms' in history and that hundreds of pro-Trump counties are being massively impacted during the most important election of our lifetimes," influencer Matt Wallace posted alongside video footage of flooding. The post received 11 million views."
Juliette Kayyem , The Atlantic; The Fog of Disaster Is Getting Worse
"Keeping track of events during a natural disaster was hard enough in the past, before people with dubious motives started flooding social media with sensational images generated by artificial intelligence. In a crisis, public officials, first responders, and people living in harm’s way all need reliable information. The aftermath of Hurricane Helene has shown that, even as technology has theoretically improved our capacity to connect with other people, our visibility into what’s happening on the ground may be deteriorating."
Michael Graff, Sara Fischer, Axios; Locals turn to legacy media as hurricane rumors swirl
"Old-fashioned legacy media — especially radio — have become a vital information lifeline in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
Why it matters: Power outages, lost cell signals and hundreds of road closures have stifled on-the-ground reporting, giving way to falsehoods that can spread quickly online — and creating an urgent need to correct them.
Senior Lecturer, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University, The Conversation; ; The New York Times’ AI copyright lawsuit shows that forgiveness might not be better than permission
"The lawsuit also presents a novel argument – not advanced by other, similar cases – that’s related to something called “hallucinations”, where AI systems generate false or misleading information but present it as fact. This argument could in fact be one of the most potent in the case.
The NYT case in particular raises three interesting takes on the usual approach. First, that due to their reputation for trustworthy news and information, NYT content has enhanced value and desirability as training data for use in AI.
Second, that due to its paywall, the reproduction of articles on request is commercially damaging. Third, that ChatGPT “hallucinations” are causing reputational damage to the New York Times through, effectively, false attribution.
This is not just another generative AI copyright dispute. The first argument presented by the NYT is that the training data used by OpenAI is protected by copyright, and so they claim the training phase of ChatGPT infringed copyright. We have seen this type of argument run before in other disputes."
