Shocking AI! Images of Tesla CEO Elon Musk kissing a robot go viral

Earlier this month, a series of images went viral that showed billionaire Elon Musk kissing a robot. But these images were not real. It turns out that they were created using AI. Check details.

Know the truth behind the viral Elon Musk images of kissing a robot. (AFP)

Some strange images of Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX, went viral earlier this month. These images showed Musk standing close to what appeared to be a humanoid robot and kissing it. The images went viral on social media and were reposted thousands of times over. They were also turned into videos and posted as Reels, TikToks, Shorts, and YouTube videos. However, it turns out that these images were not real and were generated using artificial intelligence. Yes, it was yet another case of AI fake news or morphing images.

While locating the original source of the image is difficult, one of the earliest sightings was on the Twitter account of Daniel Marven, who tweeted these images with a long caption that began with “Elon Musk announces the future wife who is she?”.

Many fact-checking websites have since come out and highlighted that these are not real images and were likely created using AI. Some of the obvious flaws in the images such as too many fingers on their hands and distorted arms are dead giveaways of an image being created using AI.

Elon Musk's viral images are fake

The emergence of the images coincides with Elon Musk unveiling the Tesla Optimus robots that are powered by AI and can be deployed into the workforce. At a time when the rise of AI and its potential risks of causing job loss, deepfakes, biased decisions, etc., is being debated, Tesla's move of unveiling humanoid AI robots met with some criticism.

It should be noted that recently, a new statement was issued around risks of AI that have been co-signed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as well as the father of AI Geoffrey Hinton.

While the risks of AI cover larger issues around humanity, topics such as deep fakes and morphed images can also not be ignored as they often lead to real-life consequences. A few weeks ago, an AI-generated image of a fire in front of the Pentagon crashed the US stock market. Earlier still, an AI-generated image of the Pope wearing a bomber jacket also went viral.