A set of AI-generated photos showing Hollywood actor and former professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson known by his ring name "The Rock" dressed as a priest performing Hindu prayer rituals is being shared with the false claim that he has embraced Hinduism.
The viral photos show Johnson performing Hindu rituals.
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The AI-generated photos are also being shared on Facebook with the false claim that the Hollywood actor has converted to Hinduism.
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Twitter user Gopal Goswami also tweeted the viral photo with the caption, "Famous heavyweight wrestler and Hollywood actor, Mr. Dwayne Johnson, popularly known as "The Rock" performing Aarti Hindu traditions." Goswami later tweeted clarifying that the photo is AI-generated.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM found that the image was created through Midjourney -a generative AI tool and is not a real photo of Dwayne Johnson accepting Hinduism or performing Hindu rituals.
Taking a hint from the tweet replies, we found that the photos were created by Bhargav Valera who had posted the same photos on Facebook stating that they were created using an AI tool.
Valera posted the three photos of Johnson in April 2023 with the caption, "dwayne johnson as a Sadhu worshipping in mandir @therock how is it ? AI concept Art #ai #aiart #aipictures #aicommunity"
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Valera has also used the hashtag '#midjourneyart' indicating it is created using the AI tool. Midjourney is an AI-powered tool that generates hyper realistic images with simple text prompts.
BOOM reached out to Valera who confirmed that he had used Midjourney to create the viral photos. "These are AI photos generated using the Midjourney tool. This is not real, all has been generated through Midjourney AI," Valera told BOOM
We also spotted several anomalies in the viral photos which strongly indicated that the images were created using AI. Johnson's fingers do not appear human-like, which strongly suggests that it is an AI-generated photo. His thumb is oversized and also the aarti plate Johnson is holding is almost blending with his fingers which is another indicator that the images are created using an AI tool.
Several researchers, journalists, and social media users have pointed out that AI tools struggle to accurately recreate hands and specifically fingers in photographs so far.
Additionally, we did not find news reports or posts by Johnson about him converting to Hinduism or posting photos of him performing Hindu rituals.