WPTV reported<\/a>.<\/p>\nOfficers told the station the man was recording reactions on his Meta glasses and posting them on social media to create viral content.<\/p>\n
Last October, police in Salem, Mass., were forced to warn residents about a viral TikTok prank that used AI to create fake images of intruders breaking into homes after they received an influx of calls reporting break-ins that never happened. <\/p>\n
People who received the fabricated pictures believed there was an intruder in their home and called 911 in a panic, wasting police resources, according to the department. <\/p>\n
\u201cBesides being in bad taste, there are many reasons why this prank is, to put it bluntly, stupid and potentially dangerous,\u201d the department said in a statement at the time. \u201cPolice officers who are called upon to respond do not know this is a prank and treat the call as an actual burglary in progress, thus creating a potentially dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Internet sleuths also have started using AI to \u201cunmask\u201d suspects in high-profile cases, flooding tip lines with bad information. Following a mass shooting at Brown University last year, officials urged the public to stop sharing such images out of concern that it would slow down the investigation and search for the suspect. <\/p>\n
In the past, large amounts of evidence in a criminal investigation could be taken mostly at face value, especially images and videos. Now, agencies have to take advanced steps to ensure what they\u2019re receiving is authentic and verifiable, Lestrange said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes policing a lot more challenging because it adds a whole bunch of additional dimensions. You can\u2019t trust your evidence as your evidence. Now you have to say, \u2018This looks like it\u2019s evidence, but we have to authenticate it first and take action second,\u2019\u201d Lestrange said. <\/p>\n
Experts say law enforcement agencies are going to have to adapt and partner with companies that can create tools for them to quickly detect AI-manipulated evidence. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not if it happens to your agency, it\u2019s when,\u201d Lestrange said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to eventually happen to everybody and it\u2019s a wake-up call.\u201d <\/p>\n
In Santa Ana, some in the department immediately were suspicious of the photo of the viper. They ran it through publicly accessible AI detectors but got different outcomes. One program said the photo was the work of AI, while another determined it was legitimate. <\/p>\n
Herpetologists also were skeptical. Gaboon vipers live on the ground and can weigh more than 45 pounds \u2014 too heavy to be adequately supported by a thin tree branch. The reptiles also are illegal to own as pets in California. <\/p>\n
Possessing the snake requires a specialized permit from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Investigators searched through public records for anyone who had such a permit in the area, but none showed up, said Officer Natalie Garcia, a Santa Ana Police Department spokesperson. <\/p>\n
But, of course, it was possible that someone purchased and was keeping the snake illegally. And as officials combed through that backyard and the shed for signs of the snake, they found droppings that could have been consistent with those of the reptile, so they played it safe and continued the search.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublic safety is obviously number one for us, and we took this like any report that we come across,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cWe wanted to just investigate to the extent of whatever it took us to finally figure out the truth.\u201d <\/p>\n
The next day, detectives went to the job of the man who reported the snake and spoke to him for several hours. Eventually, he told them he\u2019d made it up and the image was a fake, Garcia said. <\/p>\n
Authorities are putting together a case to submit to the Orange County district attorney\u2019s office recommending that he be charged with making a false report of an emergency, Garcia said. The man had not been charged or taken into custody as of Thursday morning. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can only hope that it sends a message to our entire community that we take this very seriously, and there\u2019s consequences to these actions if you decide to break the law in this manner,\u201d Garcia said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The warning from police was so terrifying, it was easy to overlook it also was implausible. A Gaboon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-482276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}