moon
Satire for Sanity
AI chatbots mislead users querying LA National Guard photos
published at 10:59
10:59
Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist
AI chatbots are increasingly being used as fact-checking tools, with social media users asking them whether something they have seen online is true or not.
However, incorrect answers from two chatbots are misleading users about the origin of news photos showing National Guard troops, sent to Los Angeles during the recent unrest, sleeping on bare floors.
California Governor Gavin Newsom posted two images on Monday, which he said showed the troops "being forced to sleep on the floor, piled on top of one another”, external.
People who used ChatGPT, designed by OpenAI, to authenticate the pictures were told they dated back to Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 - referring to the metadata on the images, external.
Grok, owned by xAI, gave a similar answer to multiple users asking about the images. It said claims the images were linked to the recent unrest in LA "lack credible support”, external.
A screengrab showing the AI tool Grok wrongly attributing social media footage of protests to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.IMAGE SOURCE,X
When we asked ChatGPT where the pictures came from it told us they were most likely captured during the “National Guard deployment to Washington DC in January 2021”.
The reality is the two images were first published by the San Francisco Chronicle, external on Monday. The paper said it had exclusively obtained the images, which it said showed National Guard troops sleeping on the floor of “one or more” of the federal buildings in Los Angeles that they'd been sent by the Trump administration to protect.
BBC Verify ran a reverse image search on both photos and found no copy of them online before 9 June.
www.bbc.co.uk
ChatGPT lies
Grok lies
AI lies
Journalists don't lie. That's why Zionists and Trump's thugs shoot them.
published at 10:59
10:59
Shayan Sardarizadeh
BBC Verify senior journalist
AI chatbots are increasingly being used as fact-checking tools, with social media users asking them whether something they have seen online is true or not.
However, incorrect answers from two chatbots are misleading users about the origin of news photos showing National Guard troops, sent to Los Angeles during the recent unrest, sleeping on bare floors.
California Governor Gavin Newsom posted two images on Monday, which he said showed the troops "being forced to sleep on the floor, piled on top of one another”, external.
People who used ChatGPT, designed by OpenAI, to authenticate the pictures were told they dated back to Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021 - referring to the metadata on the images, external.
Grok, owned by xAI, gave a similar answer to multiple users asking about the images. It said claims the images were linked to the recent unrest in LA "lack credible support”, external.
A screengrab showing the AI tool Grok wrongly attributing social media footage of protests to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.IMAGE SOURCE,X
When we asked ChatGPT where the pictures came from it told us they were most likely captured during the “National Guard deployment to Washington DC in January 2021”.
The reality is the two images were first published by the San Francisco Chronicle, external on Monday. The paper said it had exclusively obtained the images, which it said showed National Guard troops sleeping on the floor of “one or more” of the federal buildings in Los Angeles that they'd been sent by the Trump administration to protect.
BBC Verify ran a reverse image search on both photos and found no copy of them online before 9 June.

BBC Verify Live: Debunking AI fakes as US protests spark online disinformation
Latest updates from the BBC's specialists in fact-checking, verifying video and tackling disinformation.

ChatGPT lies
Grok lies
AI lies
Journalists don't lie. That's why Zionists and Trump's thugs shoot them.
Last edited: