When outraged Filipinos turned to an AI-powered chatbot to verify a viral photograph of a lawmaker embroiled in a corruption scandal, the tool failed to detect it was fabricated — even though it had generated the image itself.
Internet users are increasingly turning to chatbots to verify images in real time, but the tools often fail, raising questions about their visual debunking capabilities at a time when major tech platforms are scaling back human fact-checking.
In many cases, the tools wrongly identify images as real even when they are generated…
