Trains in the United Kingdom were delayed after someone shared an AI-edited photo showing damage to a railway bridge, prompting officials to stop rail services so they could carry out an inspection.
In yet another example of how AI images are sparking real-world panic situations, the prankster took advantage of a minor earthquake that affected Lancashire county in England by posting the image of the semi-collapsed bridge.
According to the BBC, Network Rail became aware of the image in the early hours of Thursday morning and halted trains so that a safety team could go to the location and carry out an inspection. By 2 A.M. the line was fully reopened, but rail bosses have warned people to “think about the serious impact it could have” before creating fake photos.
“The disruption caused by the creation and sharing of hoax images and videos like this creates a completely unnecessary delay to passengers at a cost to the taxpayer,” a spokesperson tells the BBC. “It adds to the high workload of our frontline teams, who work extremely hard to keep the railway running smoothly. The safety of rail passengers and staff is our number one priority and we will always take any safety concerns seriously.”
Since this happened very late at night, few passengers were affected, as that time of day is mostly used by sleeper and freight trains.
“They generally go slow so as not to disturb the passengers trying to sleep — this means they have a bit of leeway to go faster and make up time if they encounter a delay,” a rail expert tells the BBC.
A reporter from the BBC visited the bridge to confirm that there was no damage to it. The British Transport Police have been “made aware” of the situation but are not investigating.
A Growing Menace
Powerful photo editing tools are now available to many more people such as Google’s Nano Banana and ChatGPT. All users need to do is upload a photo and ask the AI to “make that bridge look like it’s falling down” via a natural language written prompt and the AI can edit it in seconds.
Unfortunately, and perhaps unsurprisingly, pranksters and bad actors are using it for harmful purposes. Numerous police forces have spoken out about the ‘AI homeless man prank’, which is a TikTok trend that sees people uploading a photo of their home and asking an AI to generate an image of a homeless man inside of it. Yonkers Police Department in New York called the problem “dangerous” as officers rush to the scene only to find it’s a joke.
“That’s not just a waste of resources,” the department wrote on Instagram. “It’s a real safety risk for officers who are responding and for the family members who are home if our officers get there before the prank is revealed and rush into the home to apprehend this ‘intruder’ that doesn’t exist.
Image credits: Via Network Rail and BBC
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