AI images of erupting Philippine volcano do not show current activity

"MAYON VOLCANO is fuming mad right now but still looks stunningly beautiful. If you live in Albay, take care," reads the caption to a collage of four images posted on Facebook here on June 15.

Thousands of people living near Mayon in the central province of Albay took shelter in evacuation centres as officials warned of health risks from ash and toxic gases spewing from the rumbling crater.

Philippine officials had warned "a hazardous eruption is possible within weeks or even days" (archived link).

Three of the images appear to show thick smoke and lava shooting out of the volcano into the air, while the fourth image shows Mayon from a distance with a well-lit road in the foreground.

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Screenshot of the misleading post, captured on June 19, 2023

The collage was shared almost 50,000 times in posts on Facebook here and here, and on Twitter.

Comments on the posts indicate some users believed the images all showed the current situation at Mount Mayon.

"This is indeed scary," read one comment.

Another said, "Beautiful but dangerous".

But only one of the images is a genuine photo of the volcano in June 2023.

AI-generated

Keyword searches on Google found three of the images used in the misleading post were originally shared here on June 11 by a Facebook user called Herol De Guzman (archived link).

"LOOK: Majestic A.I Generated Mayon Volcano," reads the post's caption.

De Guzman notes in the comments section of his post that he created the photos using Bing Image Creator, an online tool developed by Microsoft that generates images from text prompts (archived link).

"I'm a logo designer, graphic artist, web developer... since photos of Mayon have been trending, I thought it would be nice to showcase AI, this new technology, on social media," De Guzman told AFP on June 21.

The images include a Bing Image Creator logo in their bottom-left corners. The website for the tool says the logo is added to "help indicate that the image was created using Image Creator" (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the collage in the misleading post (left) and one of the AI-generated images shared by De Guzman (right) with the Image Creator logo magnified by AFP:

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Screenshot comparison of the misleading collage (left) and one of the AI-generated images shared by De Guzman (right)

A reverse image search found the fourth photo posted on Facebook on June 12 (archived link).

It is part of an album labelled "Mayon 2023 (Different Perspectives)" by Jayson Nodalo, an Albay-based photographer who has been capturing images of the volcano for years.

The photo was shot from this location in Albay.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo on the top-right of the collage (left) and the photo Nodalo shared on June 12 (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the photo as it appears in the top-right of the collage misleadingly shared on Facebook (left) and the photo that Nodalo shared on June 12 (right)

Not current activity

Winchelle Ian Sevilla, a science research specialist at the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology told AFP on June 19 the three AI-generated images "could be misinterpreted as depicting current activity" (archived link).

They depict a lava fountain, which was seen in Mount Mayon's eruptions in 2000, 2001 and 2018 (archived links here and here).

But Sevilla said that Mayon's volcanic activities to date show "a very slow extrusion of lava from the crater".

"Our Institute is watching out for the occurrence of lava fountaining as an indicator of increased volcanic gas flux and, therefore, increased chances for explosions to occur," he said.