From a New York Times story by Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson headlined “A.I. Muddies Israel-Hamas War in Unexpected Way”:

It was an image that shot rapidly around the internet: a charred body, described as a deceased child, that was apparently photographed in the opening days of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Some observers on social media quickly dismissed it as an “A.I.-generated fake” — created using artificial intelligence tools that can produce photorealistic images with a few clicks.

Several A.I. specialists have since concluded that the technology was probably not involved. By then, however, the doubts about its veracity were already widespread.