AI images cause a brief panic on the American stock markets

Many Americans will initially be quite shocked when they see the images. A thick ink black cloud of smoke towers over the Pentagon, headquarters of US defense. Memories of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 will have been fresh in everyone’s mind. Then the west wing of the building was badly creased. What’s going on this time?

The usual suspect

Nothing at all, it turned out. Anyone with a more discerning view quickly noticed that the image in question possessed the hallmark signs of an “AI” generated image. so-called “AI” lacks the intelligence of a salt bag and does nothing more than shuffle existing data. The results of this can be clearly seen in the jumble of structures that can be seen on the facade of the Pentagon in the image. The fences in front of the complex are also a random jumble of pixels that resemble something from the real world only at first glance.

It didn’t spoil the fun. Last Monday, the image spread like wildfire on Twitter. In no time the story (with the necessary qualification that it was a fake photo) could be read on the digital front page of every American newspaper. The Arlington Fire Department, the place in Washington DC where the Pentagon is located, had to step in to quell the commotion. The Pentagon really wasn’t on fire, and no, nothing right next to it either. Certainly nothing had exploded. Nevertheless, the American S&P 500 index was now 0.26 percent lower.

So why panic?

Lately it seems like we can firmly point the finger at Elon Musk every time something goes wrong. “AI”, Elon and Twitter, it’s a recipe for disorder straight out of The Anarchist’s Cookbook. The internet is going back to its roots.

The news of the alleged attack on the Pentagon did not just spread around the world’s digital town square. The photo was shared by several Twitter accounts with a so-called ‘verified badge’. As a result, many took the news seriously.

The ‘verified’ icon was once invented by Twitter to put the brakes on the massive spread of disinformation on the platform. Well-known people and companies who could prove to Twitter that they really were the person they claimed to be, received such a check mark. A random account with an Elon Musk picture and his name says to give away Bitcoin? Obviously fake. Verified accounts were widely used for PR and could only do so because they were clearly genuine in the midst of a sea of ​​scammers.

Elon Musk enters, and immediately things went wrong. With the advent of Twitter Blue, anyone with a few dollars could get such a check next to their name, resulting in some very entertaining chaos. Companies collectively lost billions in stock market value, lawsuits threatened, party all around. Insulin manufacturer Eli Lilly took the brunt of it. The drop in insulin prices from last March may be due to the Twitter Blue verified bogus messages.

Meaningless blue checkmarks

In 2023, a blue check mark actually means exactly nothing. But the zeitgeist still has to process that fact, it turns out. Verified Twitter accounts with misleading names that seemed affiliated with news outlet Bloomberg tweeted the photo around. Because Twitter Blue users are more visible on the platform, also a choice of Musk, a lot of people got to see the photo.

But not only random fake accounts used the photo. Russia Today, press arm of our least favorite neighbour, Putin, presented the photo to their millions of followers. Russia Today is no longer labeled as ‘state media’ because of, you guessed it, a childish act of revenge by Elon.

Stocks up again quickly after ‘all-clear’

Even the fire brigade had to get to it. But when their message, together with the voices of many tech experts, had calmed the ‘Twitter space’ again, the stock markets quickly calmed down again. It is the first case where an “AI” fabricated image had a measurable effect on the real world. Geoffrey Hinton’s words quickly turn out to be prophetic.

It may even have been a case of “AI” reacting to “AI”. At the fair, “AI” software is widely used to respond quickly to trends. Thus, Wallstreet can suck even more blood by adding even less to the overall cause. It is therefore likely that the “AI” bots of Wall Street investors reacted autonomously to the trend that started after the image was published. Perhaps the only way in which “AI” really manages to mimic human intelligence is creating panic over nothing.