As I peered into the dense tropical vegetation, the frightened eyes of a young American soldier met mine. I studied his camouflage gear, blue irises and pale blonde hair, wondering what thoughts lay behind his haunted expression. Clear, vivid and striking, this YouTube video transported me to the Vietnam War as depicted by generative artificial intelligence (AI) images produced in the style of GoPro camera photos.

Of course, lifelike as these images were, I immediately grasped that they were fabricated. The video’s GoPro tag was a giveaway that the images were produced by generative AI, since such cameras did not exist in the 1950s to 1970s. The use of an American song as a soundtrack made me realise this video was from the perspective of US and not Vietnamese soldiers.