Viral Paragliding Video May Be Partly AI-Generated, Experts Say

Gizmodo

2 days ago

Last week, numerous media outlets, including Gizmodo, reported on a shocking paragliding accident in China that saw a strong updraft shoot 55-year-old Peng Yujian 18,000 feet (5,500 meters) into freezing air. However, a digital security firm is now 'fairly confident' that parts of the video allegedly capturing the event are AI-generated, according to Reuters, who originally distributed the video.
'The video, originally posted after the paraglider's May 24 flight by his support team on Douyin, China's TikTok, employed artificial intelligence to fake some of the footage, according to a review by a digital security firm consulted by Reuters,' reads the Reuters update. 'Digital security firm GetReal said it was 'fairly confident' the first five seconds of Peng's video contained AI-generated images,' the article continues, noting that the video also includes inconsistencies such as strange changes to the paraglider's helmet and equipment.
Many news sites, including NBC and the BBC, have taken the video down, and the video we linked to in our own coverage on May 29 is no longer available. An article by Sixth Tone (an English language news outlet reporting on China) still has the alleged footage from Peng's camera, including the inconsistencies noted by Reuters.
As we previously reported, Peng was testing paragliding equipment at around 10,000 ft (3,000 m) above sea level when a dangerous meteorological phenomenon known as 'cloud suck' allegedly pulled him up to around 28,000 ft (8,500 m). For comparison, the peak of Mount Everest is 29,029 ft (8,848 m) above sea level. He was in the air for over an hour, exposed to almost -40 degrees Celsius (-40 degrees Fahrenheit), before landing 20 miles (33 kilometers) away from his starting point.
A camera mounted onto his equipment supposedly filmed the accident. The video—highlighting Peng's snow-crusted face looking around confusedly—went viral on Douyin, China's version of TikTok, before Chinese state media picked it up. The state-run broadcaster CCTV distributed it internationally via a Reuters-owned platform, according to the Canadian news agency.
Abhinav Dhall, an associate professor in Monash University's Department of Data Science and AI, told ABC Australia that it's difficult to determine whether the video is real or AI-generated, 'if we closely observe the starting say 3 or 4 seconds of this video we can see that the clouds in the background do not really look real. They look like as if, you know, it's a 2D picture.'
Peng's story, however, is technically possible. In 2007, German paraglider Ewa Wisnierska reportedly survived a similar accident when a storm front sucked her nearly 33,000 ft (10,000 m) into the air, according to ABC Australia. Reuters, however, reports that French pilot Antoine Girard holds the 'current record for a planned flight' for flying 27,582 ft (8,407 m) over the Himalayas in 2021.
It remains to be seen how the news industry will adapt in the face of increasingly realistic AI-generated visual content.