Washington \u2013 A Wall Street banker\u2019s explosive sexual harassment lawsuit against a female executive has triggered a torrent of salacious falsehoods muddying the waters, with AI-created deepfakes and memes fuelling the frenzy.<\/p>\n
The social media storm erupted soon after the suit \u2013 packed with allegations of sexual abuse, coercion and racial harassment \u2013 was filed in April in a New York court by a former JPMorgan Chase banker identified by US media as 35\u2011year\u2011old Chirayu Rana.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the defendant, Ms Lorna Hajdini, who remains at the bank, have called the accusations fabricated. JPMorgan Chase has said it investigated the claims and found them meritless.<\/p>\n
But even before any legal outcome, the suit\u2019s tawdry claims have become a source of public fascination, spawning a wave of artificial intelligence-generated clips and sexually suggestive memes \u2013 at a time when high-profile sexual harassment cases against women remain rare.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trend hints at how AI is going to increasingly pollute our feeds and pollute public discourse on both important and frivolous topics,\u201d Professor Timothy Caulfield, a misinformation researcher from the University of Alberta in Canada, told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis content can be produced incredibly quickly and can be specifically framed to play to our fears, interests and grievances. In the attention economy, it is all about clicks. Find a trending story and exploit.\u201d<\/p>\n
One hyper-realistic AI video circulating on Mr Elon Musk\u2019s social media platform X purports to show the pair laughing and drinking wine at a restaurant, with a voiceover claiming \u201cthey are on a date\u201d.<\/p>\n
The video also surfaced on other platforms, including Meta-owned Facebook, where some posts used it to baselessly claim that the lawsuit was \u201cfake\u201d and the two had been involved in a \u201cconsensual relationship\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another AI clip circulating across platforms, including Instagram \u2013 dubbed by users a Fifty Shades Of Grey-style trailer \u2013 presents a dramatised visual reconstruction of the alleged harassment, racial slurs and threats described in the suit.<\/p>\n
Another AI video on X depicts the pair running together through a city engulfed in flames before the female executive shoves him aside in a dramatic scene.<\/p>\n
Many social media users complained that the AI fabrications make it increasingly difficult to distinguish between reality and fiction on tech platforms, many of which have scaled back content moderation.<\/p>\n
The viral posts reflect how some influencers seek to profit from a disinformation trend researchers call \u201creal story fakes\u201d \u2013 flooding the internet with sensational AI fabrications about a real story, to gain public attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trend of \u2018real story fakes\u2019 has been growing thanks to the proliferation of easy-to-use AI tools for image and video synthesis,\u201d Professor Walter Scheirer of the University of Notre Dame told AFP.<\/p>\n
In many cases, such content is created to \u201cmake money off of an existing controversy\u201d through engagement and platform monetisation policies, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis form of disinformation is particularly prevalent in salacious circumstances such as the JPMorgan case, where those involved can be targeted for further humiliation through exaggerated depictions of their alleged sordid actions,\u201d Prof Scheirer added.<\/p>\n
The bank itself has also come under attack, with online posts sharing a doctored screenshot purporting to show a news site report that a JPMorgan intern was arrested for masturbating in a hotel hallway. The site reported no such arrest.<\/p>\n
Even before allegations are tested in court, the AI-generated visuals have propelled Ms Hajdini from a private citizen to an internet spectacle.<\/p>\n
Fabricated images of her in a swimsuit are circulating online, while she has drawn comparisons to a character played by actress Demi Moore in the 1994 film Disclosure. In the film, the actress plays a female boss sexually harassing a male subordinate.<\/p>\n