Expert warns of ‘verification crisis’ as AI fake videos spreadpublished at 12:16 GMT
12:16 GMT
Sherie Ryder and Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify
Another example of an AI-generated video of extreme snow in Russia’s Kamchatka region shows people sliding down a giant drift between two high-rise buildings.
One post of the imaginary scene has been viewed around a million times on X. But, unlike the TikTok clips we reported on earlier, it was not labelled or described as being made with AI.
As with those videos there are obvious, seemingly impossible, elements which indicate AI has been used. With a drift so steep and high, people attempting to slide down it would more than likely sink into the snow, fall down it or cause the fragile snow formation to collapse.
Our in-house AI checker, which examines videos frame-by-frame, rated it as a fake.
Henk van Ess, an expert in using AI in investigative research, also ran the videos through his ImageWhisperer tool and concluded they were fake.
He told us when images like this and the earlier example fool journalists “we’ve got a verification crisis”.
“Today it’s pretty snow footage. Tomorrow it’s a fabricated disaster or conflict zone. Every time media runs these without checking, they’re training audiences to either believe everything or nothing,” Van Ess added.
