We’ve seen clips seemingly depicting a military procession of robots being circulated on social media alongside the claim that military robots will soon be unveiled by China as a new form of high-tech weaponry.
Some have even claimed that the video shows a rehearsal for China’s Victory Day military parade held in Beijing on 3 September which will see a range of high-profile world leaders in attendance. In the video, a large audience cheers as a formation of robots – each carrying a gun – marches in a parade. These clips have been the subject of discussion on TikTok and Facebook, with some users seemingly believing in their authenticity, and speculating on China’s AI robot capabilities.
However, several features of the video stood out to us as suspicious – for instance the size of the robots relative to the crowd changing between frames. Most strikingly, the text on banners held by the crowd appears to be gibberish and not real Chinese characters at all. These features are all strong indicators of an AI-generated video.
A closer look at the (rather blurry) text watermarked on the top left-hand corner of the video roughly translates as “the scenes in this science-fiction footage are fictional and show a vision of the future 10 years from now,” further indicating the video is not a depiction of real events.
We then fed the video into a reverse image search, finding the original poster on TikTok. The first version was posted in July this year and the original upload is clearly tagged as “AI-generated.” The poster, @pubg481097 has since deleted the video, although versions of it have been reshared by other posters.
Therefore, we the video does not show a parade of armed military robots in China – it is an AI-generated video made by a social media user speculating about future military developments. We give this claim a rating of false.
Despite the fairly obvious inauthenticity of the video, we have noticed other versions of the claim being circulated – each with rather aggressive headlines about China’s military power. This is an interesting example of how even videos created for fun or as an experiment with AI can be clipped and re-framed into disinformation for views and clicks.
The topic of military capabilities and weaponry is a touchy one in the current geopolitical landscape of active conflict and ongoing tensions between major world powers. The use of AI to spread military mis/disinformation can cause not only panic and anxiety but stir up unnecessary conflicts as well.
It is vital to approach such content with careful consideration – and to think twice before sharing any videos which are unverified or present as AI-generated. This is particularly pertinent when big events (such as the September 3 parade) occur, as bad actors often make use of real occurrences to bolster the believability of their claims.
