Dramatic footage of 'flash flood' in Malaysia is AI-generated
- Published on November 21, 2024 at 03:58
- 3 min read
- By Raevathi SUPRAMANIAM, AFP Malaysia
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"The sky crashed down? Sudden rain and flood in Kuala Lumpur. It only happened at one location, like the sky crashed down," read a Malay-language TikTok post on October 30 which racked up 76 million views.
The video appears to show a sudden downpour outside an apartment complex which floods the road. Malay-language sticker text reads: "Sudden rain and flood in Kuala Lumpur".
The video surfaced ahead of the monsoon season in Malaysia, which typically runs from November to March, bringing with it heavy downpours and flash floods (archived link).
It spread in similar posts on Facebook here, here and here, with many social media users apparently believing the video was genuine and offering prayers in the comments.
It also circulated in posts in Indonesia and Thailand.
But a Google reverse image search found the video shared in a TikTok post by AI content creator Misba Zamar.
His video includes sticker text that read "#aigeneratedvideo" and a caption that says it was created with AI.
Misba said he created the video using an app called HailuoAI, which allows users to generate videos using text or image prompts. He said he used the "image to video" method to fabricate the clip.
"Sadly, some people reposted it and changed the caption to sensationalise it," he told AFP.
AI elements
Shu Hu, head of Purdue University's Purdue Machine Learning and Media Forensics Lab in the United States told AFP that the video was clearly "AI-synthesised, with several artifacts contradicting the laws of the physical world" (archive link).
Hu pointed out several elements that indicated the video was created with AI, including a yellow car seen at the beginning of the video that vanishes after the "rain" begins, while a black car appears abruptly after the downpour.
The trees in the video also show inconsistencies, with some appearing to sway significantly during the rain while others remained still.
A couple of trees in front of the apartment complex also suddenly grow larger once the rain and flood starts.
Singapore street
The video's background was also not taken in Kuala Lumpur, but rather Malaysia's southern neighbour Singapore, Misba told AFP.
"(The apartment building) is in the west side of Singapore in Chua Chu Kang, in the area of Yew Tee," he said.
AFP confirmed the location of the video by comparing it with Google Street View images from the area.
AFP has published a guide on spotting AI-generated images, which are regularly used to spread misinformation.
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