"Explosion near the Pentagon!" is proclaimed in a series of posts on Twitter. At first glance, the picture looks credible and quickly spread widely in social media.
The spread led to a short-lived decline in the stock market in the United States. But there had never been an explosion. The photo was fake – probably generated by artificial intelligence. The incident demonstrates several of today's concerns. That anyone can buy a blue verified account on Twitter, claim to be an official news site, and start spreading disinformation. That readily available AI tools can generate realistic images, which are used to "prove" a lot of different false claims.