Sawt Falasteen - False AI 'fact-checks' stir online chaos after Kirk assassination

The trend highlights how chatbots often generate confident responses, even when verified information is unavailable during fast-developing news events, energizing misinformation across platforms that have largely scaled back human fact-checking and content moderation.

A day after Kirk, a 31-year-old prominent ally of President Donald Trump, was fatally gunned down at a university in Utah, the X account of AI chatbot Perplexity falsely stated that the activist was never shot and was "still alive," according to the watchdog NewsGuard.

When posts containing an authentic video of Kirk being shot swirled online, the X account of Grok -- Elon Musk's AI chatbot -- stated that it was a satirical clip.

"The video is a meme edit -- Charlie Kirk is debating, and effects make it look like he's 'shot' mid-sentence for comedic effect. No actual harm; he's fine and active as ever," Grok wrote.

Grok also falsely claimed that a Utah-based registered Democrat named Michael Mallinson had been identified as the shooter, wrongly attributing the information to major news outlets such as CNN and the New York Times.

Mallinson, in reality a 77-year-old retired Canadian banker living in Toronto, said he was "shocked" by thousands of social media posts that labeled him the culprit.

Breaking news events often spark a frantic search for new information on social media, frequently leading to false conclusions that chatbots then regurgitate, contributing to further online chaos.

The tide of misinformation comes amid a volatile environment in the United States following Kirk's assassination, with many right-wing influencers from Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) political base calling for violence and "retribution" against the left.

The motives of the gunman involved in the shooting -- who remains at large -- are unknown.

- 'Liar's dividend' -

Meanwhile, some conspiracy theorists have baselessly claimed that the video showing Kirk being shot was AI-generated, asserting that the entire incident was staged.

The assertion underscores how the rise of cheap and widely available AI tools has given misinformation peddlers a handy incentive to cast doubt about the authenticity of real content –- a tactic researchers have dubbed as the "liar's dividend."

"We have analyzed several of the videos (of Kirk's shooting) circulating online and find no evidence of manipulation or tampering," said Hany Farid, the co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Farid also reported seeing some AI-generated videos.

"This is an example of how fake content can muddy the waters and in turn cast doubt on legitimate content," he said.

The falsehoods underline how facts are increasingly under assault in a misinformation-filled internet landscape, an issue exacerbated by public distrust of institutions and traditional media.

It has exposed an urgent need for stronger AI detection tools, experts say, as major tech platforms have largely weakened safeguards by reducing investment in human fact-checking.

Researchers say chatbots have previously made errors verifying information related to other crises such as the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East, the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.

A recent audit by NewsGuard found that 10 leading AI chatbots repeated false information on controversial news topics at nearly double the rate compared to one year ago.

"A key factor behind the increased fail rate is the growing propensity for chatbots to answer all inquiries, as opposed to refusing to answer certain prompts," NewsGuard said in a report last week.

"The Large Language Models (LLMs) now pull from real-time web searches -- sometimes deliberately seeded by vast networks of malign actors."

O.Mousa--SF-PST