A video generated using artificial intelligence has gone viral falsely claiming to show footage of the late singer Zubeen Garg receiving CPR after he drowned while swimming in the sea in Singapore.
BOOM examined the video on multiple AI detection tools which determined the clip is synthetic.
The 52-year old Assamese singer who was set to perform at the North East Festival on 20th and 21st this month in Singapore died on September 19 after experiencing breathing problems while swimming.
The Claim
The viral video shows one of the seven people on an orange rescue boat doing CPR on an unresponsive person lying down while others help. A man can be heard saying, "Zubeen! Zubeen! Are you okay? Someone call the ambulance. Stay with us." A Facebook user posted the video with the caption, "Zubeen garg singapore Viral Video."
Click here to see post and here for the archive.
What We Found
1. No credible reports: A related keyword search on Garg receiving CPR after he drowned led us to a video uploaded by DD News Assamese on X stating, it shows the singer receiving CPR inside an ambulance in Singapore. DD News Assamese credited the video to entrepreneur Sanjive Narain.
We also ran reverse image searches on the keyframes of the viral video but did not find any credible reports that matches the viral visuals.
2. Signs of inconsistency: A closer observation revealed several discrepancies in the video. For instance, the swimming goggles can be seen disappearing and reappearing on the characters' faces in successive scenes.
3. AI detection tools: Taking a hint, we tested the video on Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool which showed the video has a possibility of 62.3% of being generated by AI.
For further confirmation, we ran a screengrab of the viral video on another AI detection tool— Was It AI and according to the results, it is made using artificial intelligence.