OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – You’ve probably heard it before – don’t believe everything you see online. Take a look at these two pictures of a thunderstorm. One is real, and the other is generated by artificial intelligence. Can you tell the difference?
Many photos and videos like the one on the right are circulating online.
“In many ways, it’s kind of what we’ve always seen. We’ve always had to kind of analyze what we’ve seen on social media, make sure that we seek other trusted sources to kind of verify that information. But with AI, it makes it particularly difficult if we find or come across well done AI where you get generated storm images that look very realistic,” said Chris Franks, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Valley.
Franks says they haven’t seen a huge uptick in fake reports directed to the NWS office, but the meteorologists do see it online daily.
Sharing AI weather content can lead to public misinformation, confusion, and makes it difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not. So how can you tell if a weather image or video is real?
“Is the rain sort of disappearing, is it moving through structures? There are things, details in the image itself, like if we have tree damage and trees over the road, is there leaf debris scattered around? Does it match the thousands of other photos of real damage we’ve seen over the years during damage surveys or just looking at reports?” said Franks.
It’s not just what you’re looking at, it’s also about where it came from.
“Take a moment, hit the pause, really sort of analyze, is this a trusted source of information? Is it a major media outlet? Is it a public safety official? Or, is it the National Weather Service that’s posting that? Or is it just some person on social media? So I think that’s the biggest thing, really understanding how this information gets shared,” said Franks.
If you’re unsure if an image is real or not, look for those context clues. Did it come from a reliable source? Are there inconsistencies happening within the photo? based on what you know, is it following basic weather principles? If you’re still unsure, disregard the image.
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