Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and New York Congressman Mike Lawler found themselves in an embarrassing spot last weekend after sharing a social media post featuring an image that purportedly showed a downed U.S. pilot being rescued in Iran. It was later confirmed that the image was entirely fabricated by artificial intelligence.
The image was first posted by a pro-Trump account on X (formerly Twitter). It depicted an unidentified pilot surrounded by smiling soldiers, with an American flag draped over his lap. The post was shared more than 21,000 times before X eventually flagged it with a label noting that it was likely AI-generated.
Governor Abbott shared the image with his 1.4 million followers, writing: "This is fantastic! God is sending a message to our enemies!" The post has since been deleted. Congressman Lawler also shared the image, adding the caption, "God bless America."
The Proliferation of AI Disinformation
AI-generated misinformation has become a recurring feature of modern news cycles. In January, following reports of the U.S. military capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, social media was flooded with AI-generated fakes, including images of Maduro being taken into custody, crowds cheering, and fictional scenes of missile strikes on Caracas.
Sofia Rubinson, a disinformation editor at NewsGuard, noted that these images are particularly deceptive because they often "don't fundamentally distort the facts on the ground." However, she warned: "Using AI-generated images and out-of-context videos to fill gaps in real-time reporting has become a common tactic in information warfare."
This is not the first time Governor Abbott has been misled by fake content. In March, he shared a video he claimed showed U.S. warships shooting down an Iranian aircraft, which was actually footage taken from the World War II-themed video gameWar Thunder. Billy Binion, a writer forReasonmagazine, commented on the incident: "This reflects a depressing reality—we are in desperate need of better media literacy and a basic ability to verify what we see."
The issue of disinformation is not limited to one party. Last December, Democratic strategist Keith Edwards posted an AI-generated image of Donald Trump using a walker, which garnered 13.5 million views. California Governor Gavin Newsom has also utilized AI imagery for political messaging, including a fictional depiction of Trump and his allies being arrested by the FBI.
Hany Farid, a digital forensics expert at the University of California, pointed out that in volatile situations, disinformation can be dangerously misleading. "The fog of war and conflict is already complex enough," Farid said. "These fabrications only serve to deepen the chaos."