The AI-generated false headline was promoted by X in its official trending news section.

A shocking story was promoted on the “front page” or main feed of Elon Musk’s X on Thursday:

“Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles,” read the headline.

This would certainly be a worrying world news development. Earlier that week, Israel had conducted an airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing two generals as well as other officers. Retaliation from Iran seemed like a plausible occurrence.

But, there was one major problem: Iran did not attack Israel. The headline was fake.

Even more concerning, the fake headline was apparently generated by X’s own official AI chatbot, Grok, and then promoted by X’s trending news product, Explore, on the very first day of an updated version of the feature.

    • Railcar8095@lemm.eeEnglish
      18·
      7 months ago

      Why I imagine Xitter lawyers arguing that was it was neither spoken nor “printed”, they can’t be charged?

      • shneancy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        27·
        7 months ago

        how is it fear mongering when shit like this is happening? AI as it stands is unregulated and will continue to cause issues if left this way

        • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
          5·
          7 months ago

          So will self-driving cars, the oil industry, and a bunch of others. The US is a plutocracy, and Musk has enough power to keep playing around with this, so that’s it. If you want actual change, either start organizing for a general strike or a civil war, since stopping Musk is not on the ballot, and most likely won’t be for either of your lifetimes.

          • melpomenesclevage@lemm.eeEnglish
            8·
            7 months ago

            I mean, if your problem is just narrowly musk, the one guy, you don’t need a whole war; just one shot.

            I’m not advocating this, just pointing out, you know? Not that I have a problem with turning the class massacre into a class war.

            • maynarkh@feddit.nlEnglish
              1·
              7 months ago

              The thing is, the vast majority of terrorist attacks and assassinations are organized by rich people using poor people as pawns to further their political agenda. Such things are rarely born from people who are in touch with society and are compassionate with others.

              9/11 was organized by rich people to get back at other rich people for attacking their business. Even today’s right wing crazies only exist because there is a propaganda machine running on obscene wealth whipping desperate people into a frenzy.

              • melpomenesclevage@lemm.eeEnglish
                1·
                7 months ago

                I don’t see what terrorism has to do with this. Unless you mean the practical definition of ‘things that upset the wealthy’. Which is dumb. I want a special scary word for things that upset me.