AI-Generated Images Fuel Misinformation in Hurricane Milton's Wake

Russian state media uses AI-generated images of Florida's Disney World flooded by Milton

"Hurricane Milton flooded Disney World in Florida. People are walking knee-deep in water." On October 10, Russia's state-owned news agency RIA Novosti published in its Telegram channel three images of a flooded Walt Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida, claiming they showed the effects of Hurricane Milton. One photograph showed a lake of dark still water in front of the park's iconic Cinderella Castle. Two other pictures showed the streets of the park also submerged in water. All three images appeared to have been taken during the nighttime with the lights on inside the buildings and on the streets. Numerous Russian news outlets republished the images with catchy headlines, with the topic trending on Yandex Dzen, the Russia's version of Google News, at the time of this writing. Russia's Business FM radio station reported: "Hurricane Milton flooded Disney World in Florida. People are walking knee-deep in water." That is false. The images are fake, likely AI generated, as an inspection of their properties reveals an apparent digital alteration of basic elements, including false autofocus, false background and other indicators. The origin of the images the Russian media published, citing RIA Novosti, is impossible to establish, as the agency restricted the Telegram's default settings, which would enable downloading the images for a more detailed examination. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, said in an October 10 statement that the park "weathered the storm" and is reopening to spectators on October 11. The resort did not report any of its venues were flooded or damaged by Milton. The Orlando recreational parks were closed fully or partially on October 9 and 10, with tens of thousands of tourists "hunkered down in hotels" some praising a "party atmosphere" there, The Associated Press reported. One day later, in Russia, only one outlet, Vechernyaya Moskva (The Evening Moscow) published a correction, while other news agencies, including the state-run RIA Novosti, kept the fake images on and trending on Yandex. In the U.S., state officials and news outlets highlighted the increased flow of misinformation and disinformation aimed at discrediting the federal disaster response. CNN cited an unnamed senior government official, saying that the White House had considered but decided not to appoint a disaster recovery coordinator, who "would have played a significant public-facing role in the Biden administration's efforts to try to combat what it has warned is dangerous misinformation and disinformation about the government's role in the storm recovery." In the Russian state media, the politicized angles of natural disasters in the U.S. like the latest hurricanes Helene and Milton received little coverage, with most of the reports focused on whether the devastation could affect the U.S. ability to continue supporting Ukraine's defense. Milton raged through Florida, killing at least eight people and causing "significant damage to a level that Floridians have not seen from tornadoes," AP reported, citing U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell.

Russia shares AI images of Hurricane Milton as disinformation abounds in US

Far-right trolls spout baseless theory that storm is a 'simulation' as Republicans jump on conspiracy train As Hurricane Milton ripped across Florida, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, trolls and politicians alike spawned misinformation about the storm questioning government preparations and calling it a "simulation" designed to hurt the Republican state. But after it made landfall and exited into the Atlantic Ocean, there's a new propaganda target among conspiracists: Walt Disney World in Orlando. On Thursday morning, pictures were circulating on X, formerly Twitter, showing a flooded promenade at Disney World in Orlando with the iconic Cinderella castle at its center. "Hurricane Milton has flooded Disney World in Orlando," wrote one known vector of disinformation on X, with photos of the purported scene, which are suspected of being created using an AI image generator. The post has already been viewed over 200,000 times. Other versions of the same deceptive post were also translated into Spanish and other languages, then spread across X. Still, that didn't stop RIA Novosti, one of Russia's top state-owned news agencies from reposting the images to its official Telegram channel. "Social media users publish photos of the sinking of Disneyland in Florida as a result of Hurricane Milton," said the post, incorrectly identifying the location as Disneyland, the theme park located thousands of miles away in Anaheim, California. The RIA Novosti post has already garnered over 300,000 views. Disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding Milton began long before the storm even made landfall. Since last week, Donald Trump has been spreading lies about the Biden administration's response to Hurricane Helene, accusing the Federal Emergency Management Agency of "abandoning" North Carolina residents in what is a hotly contested state in the November presidential election. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an extremism and disinformation watchdog organization, told the Guardian that hostile actors are known for using manipulated images and propaganda posts to undermine Western democracies in times of crisis. Russia is one of the most infamous offenders of such tactics. "It's well-known that Kremlin-backed outlets and the Kremlin itself often exploit natural disasters and political crises to sow chaos and spread misinformation for their own gain," said Moustafa Ayad, ISD executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia. "The use of this image is no different." Through online chatter in places like Telegram, far-right trolls seized on the moment Milton began to pick up steam and barrel towards Florida, using the suspicions around Helene as a catalyst. "Simulation," posted one popular extremist channel days ago, accusing the hurricane of being a government creation. Another post, from the same channel and viewed thousands of times, went further posting an image of the storm in the form of an antisemitic cartoon as it approached Florida. "Pray for Florida and everyone else whose lives are being destroyed while our tax money gets shipped to satanists and other people who hate White Christians," said the post referring to Israel's military operations in the Middle East. Today, one adjacent channel, known for crafting neo-Nazi takes on the news, accused the government of using "stratospheric aerosols" to create Milton. Some of the most blatant misinformation has come from the halls of Congress. On Monday, the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene doubled down on her own track record of misinformation directly accusing the federal government of storm manufacturing. "Climate change is the new Covid," wrote the Georgia representative on X. "Ask your government if the weather is manipulated or controlled. "Are you paying for it?" she blithely asked. "Of course you are." Last night, as Milton was hitting Florida, Joe Biden made it clear that the Republican presidential nominee was at the eye of the disinformation storm. "Quite frankly, these lies are un-American," Biden said in an address from the White House. "Former president Trump has led this onslaught of lies." The onslaught of falsehoods have become so bad, Deanne Criswell, Fema chief, was forced to respond to the conspiracy theories about how her agency has responded to the storms, which ranges from accusations that money is being diverted from storm victims to border migrants, to Helene being some sort of meteorological Frankenstein.

Fake Photos of Disney World Destroyed by Hurricane Milton Flood Social Media

Russian state media and right-wing influencers on X helped share disinformation about Disney. Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, shut down operations Wednesday night due to Hurricane Milton and the tornadoes that sprung up before the storm even made landfall. But if you're seeing photos of the theme park completely flooded in water, Disney fans can rest easy. Those photos are completely fake. But Russian state media, TikTok, and X are helping them spread. Russian state media outlet RIA made a post on Telegram early Thursday with three images that appear to show Disney World submerged. "Social media users post photos of Disneyland in Florida flooding as a result of Hurricane Milton," the RIA account said according to an English language translation. How do we know these images are fake? For starters, the buildings aren't right at all. If you compare, for instance, what it looks like on either side of Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom, you don't see those buildings that appear in the fake image. But you don't even need to know what the real Cinderella's Caste looks like to know it's fake. Just zoom in on the turrets of the building itself. They're not rendered completely, and some appear at very odd angles that make it clear these are AI-generated images. The images quickly made their way back to X, the site formerly known as Twitter before it was purchased by Elon Musk. And it's impossible to overstate just how awful that platform has become. From Holocaust denial tweets that are getting millions of views to breaking news tweets that show AI images of children crying, the whole place is bubbling over with garbage. The fake images of Disney World were shared by right-wing influencer Mario Nawfal, a frequent purveyor of misinformation who's often retweeted by Musk himself. As just one recent example, Nawfal contributed to a Jimmy Carter death hoax in July that was shared by other idiots like Laura Loomer and Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. Nawfal's tweet helped spread the fake Disney photos even further on X before he finally deleted them. There were also videos shared on TikTok showing incredibly over-the-top images of destruction at Disney World, like this one shared by user @joysparkleshine. The video appears to have been originally created as a joke by an account called MouseTrapNews but is getting reposted and stripped of all context, taken seriously by a certain segment of the population. Some comments on the video include "I'm screaming the only place that made me feel like a kid again" and "Good... maybe they will now show all the underground tunnels under Disney next. Those that know... KNOW!!" That last comment is a reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory which asserts that children are being trafficked by powerful political figures and people like Oprah Winfrey and Tom Hanks. Incredibly, they believe that Donald Trump is going to save those kids. Yes, that Donald Trump. Some AI images of the hurricane that were created as a joke even started showing up in various Russian news outlets. Like the one below showing Pluto in a life-jacket carrying a child through floodwaters. The image appears to have been earnestly shared by Rubryka.com, which credits the image to Bretral Florida Tourism Oversight District, an X account devoted to jokes about theme parks. Another joke image shared by that account, Bretral Florida Tourism Oversight District, showed a photo of a boat stuck on a large mountain rock, which anyone who knows Disney World will recognize as a permanent fixture at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park. Other accounts on X were sharing the QAnon theories, insisting that the destruction of Disney World might finally reveal the truth about child trafficking. "Look at Mickey's arms," one particularly bizarre tweet with an image of a Mickey Mouse clock reads. "Could they be showing a date? October 9th. The day the storm hit Disney World. There are no coincidences. The Military are clearing out the tunnels underneath. Used for human trafficking of children and other horrible crimes." Milton made landfall as a Category 3, which caused thousands of canceled flights, battered homes and businesses with punishing winds, and killed at least nine people, according to NBC News, though that number is expected to grow as Floridians assess the damage. Disney posted an update on its website Thursday explaining that everything would be opening back up on Friday. "We're grateful Walt Disney World Resort weathered the storm, and we are currently assessing the impacts to our property to prepare for reopening the theme parks, Disney Springs, and possibly other areas on Friday, October 11. Our hearts are with our fellow Floridians who were impacted by this storm," the website reads. But whatever you do, don't believe everything you read on social media without double-checking with some trusted sources. It's a ridiculous environment for disinformation right now. And that will likely continue to be our reality for the foreseeable future.

Hurricane Milton: Fact-Checking Conspiracies, Rumors and AI Images

The aftermath of Hurricane Milton has left a trail of misinformation surrounding relief efforts in hard-hit Florida, including conspiracy theories about officials controlling the weather. The storm's devastation was not as severe as initially feared in Florida, one of the many states that were battered by Hurricane Helene nearly two weeks earlier. A wave of misinformation saw at least three congressional Republicans condemn conspiracy theories repeated by fellow members of their party. Social media accounts also shared AI-generated content showing false imagery of the damage. Others used AI to amplify political messages ahead of the Nov. 5 election. "This idea of influencing people's perception of reality, and the real impact it has, is huge," said Henry Ajder, an independent adviser on generative AI. "We are seeing on social media the narrative around Democrats controlling the weather, AI-generated imagery of how FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) are failing... fueling a pretty hateful and impactful fire. This makes it more difficult for these people to do their job in incredibly challenging circumstances." Here are some of the misinformation narratives that emerged: CLAIM: Images show flooded Disney World in Orlando WHAT WE KNOW AI-generated images were shared online alongside false captions stating they showed the devastation caused by the storm at the theme park. An analysis run through TrueMedia.org, an online deepfake detection platform, concluded there is "substantial evidence of manipulation," adding that text-to-AI image generator Stable Diffusion was the likely source of these images. Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email that their models flagged these images as likely AI-generated. "These three images are (not very good) AI-generated images," he added. "There are tell-tale and obvious structural defects in all images including inconsistent reflections in the water." "The danger of this content is that it further muddies the waters as officials are trying to save lives and it casts everything we see into doubt. This poisoning of the information ecosystem is incredibly dangerous for our society and democracy." The theme park, which was closed on Wednesday and Thursday, reopened on Friday but its website did not specify if there was any damage at the location. Walt Disney World did not respond to a request for comment. CLAIM: Video showing frequency waves pumping through Hurricane Milton are "not natural" WHAT WE KNOW A 41-second clip shared on X, clocking over 1.5 million views, shows a wall of clouds rotating around a central core and occasional blue flashes appearing in or around those clouds. The video was shared as supposed evidence of unnatural "frequency waves" emerging from Milton, suggesting the storm was engineered to be a weapon. But the video can be traced to an Instagram post published by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University. A CIRA spokesperson told Reuters that "frequency waves" do not exist and the video shows cloud movement during the formation of Milton with lightning colorized blue for visibility. CLAIM: Underwater imagery shows HAARP facility controlling Florida weather WHAT WE KNOW A video shared online shows a person using Google Maps' satellite imagery around Florida to zoom in on an underwater facility, claiming it belongs to the Alaska-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which has often been invoked in narratives suggesting the government can control the weather. But the image shows a coral nursery off the Florida Keys run by a conservation group, not a HAARP facility. A spokesperson for HAARP also told Reuters: "HAARP can't create, modify or manipulate a hurricane." CLAIM: FEMA official says they have plans to "execute" people in an audio clip WHAT WE KNOW A 2021 audio clip repurposed online to make false suggestions that FEMA had plans to "execute" people as Hurricane Milton barreled towards Florida earlier this week gathered over 800,000 impressions. In the original clip (timestamp 20:03) from a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is seen making an apparent verbal slip-up, saying, "we plan to execute..." before correcting himself while detailing the evacuation plan for "70,000-80,000 people." CLAIM: FEMA funds for disaster relief are used to house "illegal immigrants" WHAT WE KNOW This is misleading. Posts on social media have accused the Biden-Harris administration of diverting funds allocated for FEMA disaster relief to help house "illegal immigrants." These unfounded claims were amplified by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Congressman Jim Jordan. But FEMA's page responding to hurricane-related rumors says, "No money is being diverted from disaster response needs." FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund received over $20 billion from Congress for fiscal 2024, according to its Budget Overview (page 7). The Shelter and Services Program, created in 2023 and administered by FEMA, is a separate appropriated grant program to provide shelter to "noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." When the program was first created, Congress directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to transfer $800 million from its operations budget to FEMA for the Shelter and Services Program. (Reporting by Esther Chan, Hardik Vyas and Lydia Morrish; additional reporting by Rosemary An; Editing by Stephanie Burnett, Christine Soares, William Maclean)

Hurricane Milton: Fact-checking conspiracies, rumors and AI images

The aftermath of Hurricane Milton has left a trail of misinformation surrounding relief efforts in hard-hit Florida, including conspiracy theories about officials controlling the weather. The storm's devastation was not as severe as initially feared in Florida, one of the many states that were battered by Hurricane Helene nearly two weeks earlier. A wave of misinformation saw at least three congressional Republicans condemn conspiracy theories repeated by fellow members of their party. Social media accounts also shared AI-generated content showing false imagery of the damage. Others used AI to amplify political messages ahead of the Nov. 5 election. "This idea of influencing people's perception of reality, and the real impact it has, is huge," said Henry Ajder, an independent adviser on generative AI. "We are seeing on social media the narrative around Democrats controlling the weather, AI-generated imagery of how FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) are failing... fueling a pretty hateful and impactful fire. This makes it more difficult for these people to do their job in incredibly challenging circumstances." Here are some of the misinformation narratives that emerged: CLAIM: Images show flooded Disney World in Orlando WHAT WE KNOW AI-generated images were shared online alongside false captions stating they showed the devastation caused by the storm at the theme park. An analysis run through TrueMedia.org, an online deepfake detection platform, concluded there is "substantial evidence of manipulation," adding that text-to-AI image generator Stable Diffusion was the likely source of these images. Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email that their models flagged these images as likely AI-generated. "These three images are (not very good) AI-generated images," he added. "There are tell-tale and obvious structural defects in all images including inconsistent reflections in the water." "The danger of this content is that it further muddies the waters as officials are trying to save lives and it casts everything we see into doubt. This poisoning of the information ecosystem is incredibly dangerous for our society and democracy." The theme park, which was closed on Wednesday and Thursday, reopened on Friday but its website did not specify if there was any damage at the location. Walt Disney World did not respond to a request for comment. CLAIM: Video showing frequency waves pumping through Hurricane Milton are "not natural" WHAT WE KNOW A 41-second clip shared on X, clocking over 1.5 million views, shows a wall of clouds rotating around a central core and occasional blue flashes appearing in or around those clouds. The video was shared as supposed evidence of unnatural "frequency waves" emerging from Milton, suggesting the storm was engineered to be a weapon. But the video can be traced to an Instagram post published by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University. A CIRA spokesperson told Reuters that "frequency waves" do not exist and the video shows cloud movement during the formation of Milton with lightning colorized blue for visibility. CLAIM: Underwater imagery shows HAARP facility controlling Florida weather WHAT WE KNOW A video shared online shows a person using Google Maps' satellite imagery around Florida to zoom in on an underwater facility, claiming it belongs to the Alaska-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which has often been invoked in narratives suggesting the government can control the weather. But the image shows a coral nursery off the Florida Keys run by a conservation group, not a HAARP facility. A spokesperson for HAARP also told Reuters: "HAARP can't create, modify or manipulate a hurricane." CLAIM: FEMA official says they have plans to "execute" people in an audio clip WHAT WE KNOW A 2021 audio clip repurposed online to make false suggestions that FEMA had plans to "execute" people as Hurricane Milton barreled towards Florida earlier this week gathered over 800,000 impressions. In the original clip (timestamp 20:03) from a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is seen making an apparent verbal slip-up, saying, "we plan to execute..." before correcting himself while detailing the evacuation plan for "70,000-80,000 people." CLAIM: FEMA funds for disaster relief are used to house "illegal immigrants" WHAT WE KNOW This is misleading. Posts on social media have accused the Biden-Harris administration of diverting funds allocated for FEMA disaster relief to help house "illegal immigrants." These unfounded claims were amplified by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Congressman Jim Jordan. But FEMA's page responding to hurricane-related rumors says, "No money is being diverted from disaster response needs." FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund received over $20 billion from Congress for fiscal 2024, according to its Budget Overview (page 7). The Shelter and Services Program, created in 2023 and administered by FEMA, is a separate appropriated grant program to provide shelter to "noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." When the program was first created, Congress directed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to transfer $800 million from its operations budget to FEMA for the Shelter and Services Program. (Reporting by Esther Chan, Hardik Vyas and Lydia Morrish; additional reporting by Rosemary An; Editing by Stephanie Burnett, Christine Soares, William Maclean)

Hurricane Milton: Fact-checking conspiracies, rumors and AI images

Oct 11 - The aftermath of Hurricane Milton has left a trail of misinformation surrounding relief efforts in hard-hit Florida, including conspiracy theories about officials controlling the weather. The storm's devastation was not as severe as initially feared in Florida, one of the many states that were battered by Hurricane Helene nearly two weeks earlier. A wave of misinformation saw at least three congressional Republicans condemn conspiracy theories repeated by fellow members of their party. Advertisement · Scroll to continue Social media accounts also shared AI-generated content showing false imagery of the damage. Others used AI, opens new tab to amplify political messages, opens new tab ahead of the Nov. 5 election. "This idea of influencing people's perception of reality, and the real impact it has, is huge," said Henry Ajder, opens new tab, an independent adviser on generative AI. "We are seeing on social media the narrative around Democrats controlling the weather, AI-generated imagery of how FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) are failing... fueling a pretty hateful and impactful fire. This makes it more difficult for these people to do their job in incredibly challenging circumstances." Advertisement · Scroll to continue Here are some of the misinformation narratives that emerged: CLAIM: Images show flooded Disney World in Orlando WHAT WE KNOW AI-generated images, opens new tab were shared online alongside false captions stating they showed the devastation caused by the storm at the theme park. An analysis, opens new tab run through TrueMedia.org, an online deepfake detection platform, concluded there is "substantial evidence of manipulation," adding that text-to-AI image generator Stable Diffusion, opens new tab was the likely source of these images. Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said in an email that their models flagged these images as likely AI-generated. "These three images are (not very good) AI-generated images," he added. "There are tell-tale and obvious structural defects in all images including inconsistent reflections in the water." "The danger of this content is that it further muddies the waters as officials are trying to save lives and it casts everything we see into doubt. This poisoning of the information ecosystem is incredibly dangerous for our society and democracy." The theme park, which was closed on Wednesday and Thursday, reopened on Friday but its website did not specify if there was any damage at the location. Walt Disney World did not respond to a request for comment. CLAIM: Video showing frequency waves pumping through Hurricane Milton are "not natural" WHAT WE KNOW A 41-second clip shared on X, opens new tab, clocking over 1.5 million views, shows a wall of clouds rotating around a central core and occasional blue flashes appearing in or around those clouds. The video was shared as supposed evidence of unnatural "frequency waves" emerging from Milton, suggesting the storm was engineered to be a weapon. But the video can be traced to an Instagram post, opens new tab published by the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University. A CIRA spokesperson told Reuters that "frequency waves" do not exist and the video shows cloud movement during the formation of Milton with lightning colorized blue for visibility. CLAIM: Underwater imagery shows HAARP facility controlling Florida weather WHAT WE KNOW A video, opens new tab shared online shows a person using Google Maps' satellite imagery around Florida to zoom in on an underwater facility, claiming it belongs to the Alaska-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), which has often been invoked in narratives suggesting the government can control the weather. But the image shows a coral nursery off the Florida Keys run by a conservation group, not a HAARP facility. A spokesperson for HAARP also told Reuters: "HAARP can't create, modify or manipulate a hurricane." CLAIM: FEMA official says they have plans to "execute" people in an audio clip WHAT WE KNOW A 2021 audio clip repurposed online, opens new tab to make false suggestions that FEMA had plans to "execute" people as Hurricane Milton barreled towards Florida earlier this week gathered over 800,000 impressions. In the original clip (timestamp, opens new tab 20:03) from a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, opens new tab on the Afghanistan withdrawal, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is seen making an apparent verbal slip-up, saying, "we plan to execute..." before correcting himself while detailing the evacuation plan for "70,000-80,000 people." CLAIM: FEMA funds for disaster relief are used to house "illegal immigrants" WHAT WE KNOW This is misleading. Posts, opens new tab on social media have accused the Biden-Harris administration of diverting funds allocated for FEMA disaster relief to help house "illegal immigrants." These unfounded claims were amplified by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, opens new tab and Congressman Jim Jordan, opens new tab. But FEMA's page, opens new tab responding to hurricane-related rumors says, "No money is being diverted from disaster response needs." FEMA's Disaster Relief Fund received over $20 billion from Congress for fiscal 2024, according to its Budget Overview (page 7, opens new tab). The Shelter and Services Program, opens new tab, created in 2023 and administered by FEMA, is a separate appropriated grant program to provide shelter to "noncitizen migrants following their release from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)." When the program was first created, Congress directed, opens new tab U.S. Customs and Border Protection to transfer $800 million from its operations budget to FEMA for the Shelter and Services Program. Reporting by Esther Chan, Hardik Vyas and Lydia Morrish; additional reporting by Rosemary An; Editing by Stephanie Burnett, Christine Soares, William Maclean Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

How fake Hurricane Milton AI images can have real consequences

Hurricane Milton AI slop goes beyond annoying clickbait. Credit: Mashable Composite; NASA / Handout / Getty Images News / Getty AI-generated images and videos about Hurricane Milton might not just be annoying clickbait. They could also be connected to scams and disinformation campaigns. In the aftermath of the category 3 hurricane that devastated parts of Florida, social media platforms like X, TikTok, and Facebook have been inundated with AI-generated content. Some AI-generated images and videos are easier to spot than others, like the obviously played-for-laughs image of a girl hugging an alligator on a boat in the pouring rain. Others are more convincing, like AI-generated images of a flooded Disney World that initially duped many -- even getting shared by a Russian propaganda outlet. The outcome might just be the spread of disinformation, which is bad enough, but AI-generated internet trash is also used to lure people into scams. At this point many have seen the fake images of the Disney World walkways under water. But a quick scroll on TikTok shows AI-generated footage of Hurricane Milton wreaking havoc. Some of the videos are labeled as AI-generated videos with hashtags or captions, but it's easy to imagine how they could be shared and exploited by someone else. Karen Panetta, IEEE fellow and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Tufts University, describes how AI-generated content can be weaponized to incite panic and confusion. "Less than 30 percent of our adult public understands what AI can do. So you can put some misinformation out to the general population with a scary headline, you're going to get a lot of people panicking," said Panetta. To be clear, the actual damage done by Hurricane Milton is devastatingly real. But when AI-generated content comes into play, it makes users question reality. That in turn can create mistrust and fertile ground for hurricane conspiracy theories. Case in point, one X user claimed the footage from NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick was fake, and even suggested Dominick wasn't in space. The footage has since been verified as authentic. But to add to the confusion, some satellite images claiming to be of Hurricane Milton were debunked by Snopes as being mis-captioned or AI-generated. Aside from misinformation and disinformation in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, experts say to be vigilant about scams. The Federal Trade Commission issued a press release the day before Milton made landfall warning consumers to look out for "those looking to take advantage of natural disasters by engaging in potential fraud or price gouging." And according to Panetta, scams like fake charities can make themselves more persuasive by using generative AI. "In any disaster there's always something that goes on where [scammers] try to set up web pages for fundraising that aren't legitimate," said Panetta. "What's happening now is that because of the easy access to AI-generated imagery, it's being used to add credibility and say, 'Look, it's not just me asking for money. Look how horrible this is.'" The viral AI-generated image of the little girl holding a puppy and crying in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a perfect example of how an image can pull on the heartstrings and evoke the desire to donate, even if it's fake. While savvy internet users might realize it's fake, others may not know and those people are easy targets for scams. Some of the AI-generated images of Hurricane Milton might seem like innocuous instances of some kid eager to show off their generative AI skills. But that's not always the case. The false sense of innocence might be part of a way of getting people to let their guard down. "It's a whole strategy. How do I bait people in? And then once I have you convinced that I'm legitimate, there's an ask in there," said Panetta. "There's always money at the end," she added. While natural disasters like Hurricane Milton might make people exceptionally vulnerable, it's all the more vital to apply critical thinking and think twice before reacting to anything online. The FTC says scams will often insist on payment through wire transfer, gift card, payment app, cryptocurrency or in cash, and recommends looking at its resources on how to avoid scams after a weather emergency.