Pluto holding a girl in his paws while trekking through a flooded Disney World. Godzilla crying while cradling a giant bug in a flooded city street. A small girl in a lifejacket seated on a boat next to a green alien baby.
Absurd and comical rescue images that appear to have been made with artificial intelligence have sprung up on social media this week as Hurricane Milton hit Florida, a reaction to the earlier proliferation of more realistic fake images related to Hurricane Helene.
Many of the memes are clearly fake — some contain fictional characters, others look like illustrations, most have captions that imply the posts are a joke. But as technology has advanced, fake images generated by AI have continued to proliferate on the internet, at times making it easier for false information to spread online. Public officials even cautioned Floridians this week to beware of AI-generated images that falsely depict conditions on the ground.
The inspiration for the hurricane rescue images meme format apparently stems from a viral post from a public official on X, who shared a fake image of a child crying while holding a puppy with a flooded backdrop amid Hurricane Helene, which some recirculated as if it were real.
Amy Kremer, a Republican National Committee National Committeewoman of Georgia, posted the photo on Oct. 3, writing: “This picture has been seared into my mind. My heart hurts.”
In a community note on the post, X later labeled the image as AI generated, noting: “Tell tale signs include the unnatural sheen, a disappearing green boat, and a man with a seemingly missing limb in the background.”
In a follow-up post, Kremer said she doesn’t “know where this photo came from and honestly, it doesn’t matter.” She said she’s keeping the post on social media “because it is emblematic of the trauma and pain people are living through right now.”
But people quickly began parodying the image, posting similar AI-generated images that depict “comically impossible acts of heroism supposedly from Hurricane Milton,” according to the online database Know Your Meme, which documents and explains the origins of trending memes online.
“The images are made in parody of those who sincerely share AI-generated ‘wholesome’ images without knowing or disclosing that they are AI, and are often shared with captions feigning inspiration from the images,” the database said in its entry about the meme.
In one meme image posted by an X user, former President Donald Trump appears to be dropping a basket of puppies over a body of water. “Heartbreaking scenes coming out off Florida,” the X user wrote.
In another parody post, posted by Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” on BlueSky, Trump is in a boat similar to the image Kremer shared and is holding a puppy with X owner Elon Musk’s face.
