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AI images of ousted Venezuelan leader Maduro spread rapidly despite safeguards
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Venezuela’s ousted President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores being escorted off a helicopter en route to the federal courthouse in Manhattan on Jan 5.
PHOTO: VINCENT ALBAN/NYTIMES
Stuart A. Thompson and Tiffany Hsu
NEW YORK - Just hours after news spread online that Mr Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s ousted president, was arrested by US forces, social media was overrun with photographs depicting him in handcuffs, escorted by drug enforcement agents or surrounded by soldiers on a military aircraft.
The images were fake – likely the product of artificial intelligence (AI) tools – in what experts said is one of the first times that AI imagery has depicted prominent figures while a historical moment was rapidly unfolding.
