Pictures from June 2024 authentically depict a pink dolphin seen off the coast of North Carolina.
On June 19, 2024, a sequence of pictures depicting a pink dolphin supposedly discovered off the coast of North Carolina went viral on a number of social media platforms, together with Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram.
We ran the pictures via AI-detection software program Hive, and the outcomes mentioned they have been 99% AI-generated.
(Hive)
It seems Fb account @Alex Lex created the pictures. The account posted different equally AI-generated pictures, together with one in every of somebody barbecuing what seemed to be pink dolphins and one in every of a pink dolphin with an indication round its neck studying “ALEX LEX NEVER LIE.” In one other submit, he wrote: “Apologies for flooding your Fb feed with posts concerning the pink dolphin.”
It seems that the Alex Lex account and Fb account Outer Banks Vibes – the place the pictures initially went viral with over 53,000 reactions and eight,200 feedback – are related. “Fb trending at present, 179k folks speaking about it,” the Alex Lex account wrote in a submit sharing a screenshot of the Outer Banks Vibes submit. We reached out the Alex Lex Fb account for affirmation and can replace this story if we obtain a response.
Many individuals weighed in throughout social media on the probability of a pink dolphin showing off the coast of North Carolina. Whereas pink dolphins do exist, they’re extraordinarily uncommon. There are two principal sorts of pink dolphins: Amazon river dolphins (also called Pink river dolphins) and albino bottlenose dolphins.
Amazon river dolphins live only in freshwater and are primarily discovered within the Amazon and Orinoco river basins in Bolivia Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela, in keeping with the World Wildlife Fund. They seem distinctly completely different from the bottlenose dolphin seen within the AI-generated pictures; the top and snout are fully completely different shapes. Moreover, Amazon river dolphins vary from strong grey, to mottled grey and pink, to pink, however their pores and skin pigment doesn’t resemble that seen within the AI-generated pictures.
Pink River Dolphin or Boto (Inia geoffrensis) (Getty Pictures)
Individuals have sighted Albino bottlenose dolphins, although additionally uncommon, within the wild. A whale museum in Japan also captured an albino dolphin. In 2009, The Guardian published a story about an albino bottlenose dolphin seen in a Lake Calcasieu, a saltwater estuary in Louisiana. As defined within the story:
(The Guardian)
We reached out to the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, who confirmed that they haven’t obtained any report of a pink dolphin sighting off the coast of North Carolina.
In sum, as a result of the pictures seem to have originated from an account that usually posts AI-generated pictures, together with different AI-generated pictures depicting pink dolphins, AI-detection software program Hive estimated the pictures to be 99.9% AI-generated, and given the unlikelihood of a pink dolphin showing off the North Carolina coast, we have now rated these photographs and this declare “Faux.”
