An apparently AI-generated hoax of an explosion at the Pentagon went viral online — and markets briefly dipped

A fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., may have been created by artificial-intelligence tools.

But that didn’t stop it from being spread by dozens of accounts on social media — and the stock market briefly dipped as the fake news spread.

An image appearing to show a massive cloud of smoke near a building and claims that there had been an explosion near the Pentagon started circulating on Twitter early Monday.