While a handful of airlines are dealing with the aftermath of recent plane crashes, Emirates is battling a virtual onslaught of airborne carnage. The airline is hitting out at content creators who have produced AI-generated videos depicting an A380 and an A330 with exploding engines crashing, killing hundreds of people. "We are aware of a video circulating on social media depicting an Emirates plane crash," the airline said in an X post. "Emirates confirms it is fabricated content and untrue." It is also criticizing social media platforms.
Artificially generated content will bring a lot of interesting developments to the world. Thats what was said. Now its being done.
Tell Chat GPT and it will produce whatever you wish. Not always 100% perfect, but if a company like Emirates feels compelled to denounce something - its getting close enough to hurt the bottom line.
In the old days people were smart enough (just barely) to know this is pure fiction. Today not so much. Just like every airplane at night is an Iranian drone.
Some of the fake videos and photos are good enough that you actually have to analyze them closely to tell if they are real. Even if the situation depicted may give it away as fake, there can be enough doubt that you can’t outright dismiss it.
The problem with these “deep fakes” is that they are training us to either 1) believe everything we see is real (this is bad) or 2) disbelieve everything we see with our own eyes (this is also bad).
It’s amusing that they feel this way about a simulation. Thank God FedEx isn’t coming after me for crashing an MD-11 freighter in their colors on X-Plane 12 twice yesterday and doing a heavy landing at BOS, before I got the autoflight system sorted out in my head, today. But then I don’t pretend any of the simulations are real, and don’t post them online. This looks like an old simulation, or maybe MS 2020? The fire isn’t correctly located relative to the engine, it burns ahead. The damage model is also poor. I don’t think this is AI generated. It’s much easier to just crash a simulator.
I’m sorry, but AI? The above clip may not have been the AI generated clip they were referencing, but I know for sure that it IS a recording of the 2013 game “Grand Theft Auto 5”. The skyline is not Abu Dubai, it’s the fictional recreation of L.A. dubbed “Los Santos”. I know the internet it a muddy place, but how much worse does it have to get before we see either reform, or some sort of media literacy course for the folks who, unfortunately and understandably, believe things like this.
The fact that the clip above was taken from a game that is now 15 years old, and can still pass for reality, speaks to the vulnerability of the public to misinformation.
“B.S. is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”