Looking at AI: Images exploit jet crash tragedy in Bangladesh

After a fighter jet on a training mission crashed into a school in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Facebook, Instagram and other social media were flooded with AI-generated visuals pretending to show the incident. At least 33 people, most of them children, were killed in what was the country's worst plane disaster in decades. Captions such as "My heart is pounding" and "How the incident happened" appeared on posts, but comparisons with authentic AFP images of the aftermath revealed that the visuals were fabricated by artificial intelligence. AI is upending the way we understand information online, and in this series we report on trends and interview experts to show how tools are evolving and how AFP journalists are adapting their techniques.