As Israel and Iran trade blows in a quickly escalating conflict that risks engulfing the rest of the region as well as a more direct confrontation between Iran and the U.S., social media is being flooded with AI-generated media that claims to show the devastation, but is fake.

The fake videos and images show how generative AI has already become a staple of modern conflict. On one end, AI-generated content of unknown origin is filling the void created by state-sanctioned media blackouts with misinformation, and on the other end, the leaders of these countries are sharing AI-generated slop to spread the oldest forms of xenophobia and propaganda.

If you want to follow a war as it’s happening, it’s easier than ever. Telegram channels post live streams of bombing raids as they happen and much of the footage trickles up to X, TikTok, and other social media platforms. There’s more footage of conflict than there’s ever been, but a lot of it is fake.

A few days ago, Iranian news outlets reported that Iran’s military had shot down three F-35s. Israel denied it happened. As the claim spread so did supposed images of the downed jet. In one, a massive version of the jet smolders on the ground next to a town. The cockpit dwarfs the nearby buildings and tiny people mill around the downed jet like Lilliputians surrounding Gulliver.

It’s a fake, an obvious one, but thousands of people shared it online. Another image of the supposedly downed jet showed it crashed in a field somewhere in the middle of the night. Its wings were gone and its afterburner still glowed hot. This was also a fake.

The AI Slop Fight Between Iran and Israel

There’s a lack of footage from the conflict and AI-generated content is filling the void.

^{Matthew Gault (404 Media)}

https://thehill.com/latino/5359169-pregnant-us-citizen-border-patrol-agents/

A scene I came home to: my wife had just finished playing a journaling RPG about attempting to preserve a library from ransacking hordes in the distant past, involving both blocks and cards. And I saw it all, and the scene composed itself. Nothing was disturbed in the slightest.

I just think this is very pleasing and cozy to look at.

Sensitive content Clicca per aprire/chiudere

cross-posted from: hexbear.net/post/5307804

NRK^[Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation] will discontinue its teletext service on August 20 due to the risk of serious technical issues. Over the course of the past few years, the service has become increasingly difficult for NRK to maintain. The technology is old and very demanding to keep in working order with the rest of NRK's system.

—"Most people are surprised when they find out that teletext still exists. But we know there are still some people who use it to this day," says Audun Aas, product development manager for nrk.no.

Aas says that NRK is doing its best to help teletext users find the information they're used to receiving through the service, elsewhere.

NRK's teletext service celebrated its 40th anniversary two years ago. During the service's 30th anniversary, it was predicted not to last another decade.

---

::: spoiler Did you know?
* Black and white TV sets were still common in 1983. NRK had a monopoly on TV broadcasts, but no way to provide quick updates on news and other information.
* Teletext was initially only available for a few hours in the evening, namely from the children's programming block to the end of broadcasts before midnight.
* Because the terminals NRK used to type teletext were imported from England, the letters Æ and Ø had to be replaced with Ä and Ö in teletext respectively.
* A typo in a teletext warning about toxins in blue mussels caused many Norwegians to fall ill in the summer of 1994.
* The invitation to the NRK teletext editorial staff's 10 year anniversary — including the event's bill of fare — was accidentally shown on teletext, prompting an apology via Dagbladet^[Newspaper associated with the Liberal Party until 1977. Sold from the Berner Group to Aller Media in 2013.].
* Teletext was for many years most popular among 20-39 year olds.
:::

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42 years of teletext

The Norwegian parliament resolved in April of 1982 that NRK would establish a teletext service. The service launched on February 2, 1983.

Establishing a teletext service proved to be such a daunting task that the chief editor of Arbeiderbladet^[Newspaper today known as Dagsavisen. Associated with the Labor Party at the time; became party-independent in 1999 and is now owned by Mentor Media.] was brought on to lead the work.

Surveys show that use of teletext has gradually declined in recent years, with only 3% of Norway's population using teletext as of 2024.

On August 20, 2025, the service will end after 42 years.

---

::: spoiler Poll: Will you miss teletext?
* Yes, I like having it available as an option: 29%
* No, I won't miss it: 40%
* Yes, but only due to nostalgia: 31%

3,566 votes

NB: This poll is not representative of the entire country. These are only the votes of people who read this article and decided to vote.
:::

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[There's a video from 1979 attached here explaining what teletext is, but I don't feel like translating it right now. The key takeaway is maybe that NRK was already experimenting with teletext by that point, but hadn't officially launched their service yet.]

All information currently available on teletext is also available on nrk.no.

Slutt for tekst-TV etter 42 år

NRK legger ned tekst-TV fra 20. august. Avvikler tjenesten på grunn av faren for alvorlige feil.

^{Anna Rut Tørressen (NRK)}

The United States and China are entangled in what many have dubbed an “AI arms race.”

In the early days of this standoff, US policymakers drove an agenda centered on “winning” the race, mostly from an economic perspective. In recent months, leading AI labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic got involved in pushing the narrative of “beating China” in what appeared to be an attempt to align themselves with the incoming Trump administration. The belief that the US can win in such a race was based mostly on the early advantage it had over China in advanced GPU compute resources and the effectiveness of AI’s scaling laws.

But now it appears that access to large quantities of advanced compute resources is no longer the defining or sustainable advantage many had thought it would be. In fact, the capability gap between leading US and Chinese models has essentially disappeared, and in one important way the Chinese models may now have an advantage: They are able to achieve near equivalent results while using only a small fraction of the compute resources available to the leading Western labs.

There can be no winners in a US-China AI arms race

AI competition is not a zero-sum game. Instead, the world’s superpowers need to work together to make sure AI benefits humanity.

^{Alvin Wang Graylin and Paul Triolo (MIT Technology Review)}

As Israel bombs Iran, and the threat of U.S. military escalation grows by the hour, the world’s attention is being pulled into yet another war that Israel started and the West manufactured. After flattening Gaza and locking down the West Bank Israel has now dragged Iran into open confrontation — and is calling on the U.S. to finish the job.