Jul 1, 2026Single source
Spokane police released an AI-generated image of an injured dog to news media, mistaking it for a real photo
AI loose in the worldMisinformationDERIVED
Approved by person, Oct 11, 2026. How entries are approved
Spokane, Washington detectives reportedly made an AI-generated image as a joke showing an undercover officer holding an injured dachshund. A supervisor reportedly took it for a real photo and it went to news media. The Spokesman-Review ran a cropped version before the department disclosed the fabrication and began reviewing its verification procedures.
What this means for youAI-made images can look real enough to fool officials and newsrooms, and a joke can spread as fact. Before sharing an image from an official source, ask where it came from and whether anyone verified it.
Sources
- AI Incident Databasehttps://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/1597
Data from the AI Incident Database (incidentdatabase.ai), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. IAAI-21.
Source data license: CC BY-SA 4.0 (database). Report contents keep their own rights; reports.text, submissions, images and videos are excluded from the data license.
Covered by snapshot 45
da93f03b406f409940d0a6ef47b526607f82ebf457d98f69299b88aceede576a
This entry is record number 2109. It has not been edited since it was approved; the hash above would not match if it had. How to verify