AI-Generated Imagery and Multilingual Disinformation in Chinese Campaign Regarding Maui Wildfires

August 8, 2023

Chinese operatives exploited AI-generated imagery in a disinformation campaign about wildfires on Maui, propagating false narratives linking the fires to a covert 'weather weapon' test by the U.S.

Researchers from Microsoft and other organizations exposed this novel tactic as part of influence operations. This incident underscores the importance of responsible AI governance and safeguarding against disinformation. For those interested in shaping the future of trustworthy AI, JOIN US. By participating in the HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM (Govern), we can help establish guardrails for AI and prevent such incidents in the future.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.695, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MEASURE 2.6 — similarity 0.693, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.2 — similarity 0.691, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: chinese-government
Alleged developer: unknown
Alleged harmed parties: hawaiian-government, general-public, american-government

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/565

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.