History being rewritten with AI images of The Beatles, Auschwitz liberation

David Williams January 30, 2025
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There are several giveaways that this is not a genuine picture of the liberation of Auschwitz. Image by Facebook/AAP

WHAT WAS CLAIMED

A photo shows prisoners following the liberation of Auschwitz.

OUR VERDICT

False. The image has been generated with artificial intelligence technology.

AAP FACTCHECK – Images created via artificial intelligence (AI) but described as "historical" are leaving social media users unsure of what's fact and what's fiction.

Events from Beatles recording sessions to the liberation of Auschwitz are being digitally reimagined but passed off as real, and experts are warning of serious consequences.

AI professor Toby Walsh is the former editor-in-chief of the publications Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research and AI Communications.

He told AAP FactCheck AI technology is more sophisticated now than ever, but there are still clues to look for.

"It used to be that AI got fingers wrong and made other simple mistakes … but this is no longer the case," Professor Walsh said. 

Several examples of AI mischief appear on a Facebook page called Age of Exploration, which one photo supposedly showing The Beatles recording the track Tomorrow Never Knows.

Fake AI image of The Beatles recording Tomorrow Never Knows.
Wording on the microphone in the background of this AI image is scrambled. (Facebook/AAP)

The clearest indication the image was fake, Professor Walsh said, was the incorrect spelling of the track on the microphone, because AI "still struggles with writing in signs".

The fake band members' appearance is also quite different to that of the actual Fab Four in April 1966, when Tomorrow Never Knows was recorded, as a Getty image reveals. 

The Facebook page includes several other AI-generated images, including a supposed photo described as "18 year old Philip meeting then 13 year old Princess Elizabeth" in 1939.

Among the clues the image is fake are the fact that the framing, lighting, expressions and background are all too perfect, and the details too clear, for a photograph from 1939.

A Getty image of Prince Philip aged 18 also confirms he had a full head of hair at the time.

Another image, supposedly of Anne Frank sitting at her desk in Amsterdam in 1941, is again too clear to have been taken more than 80 years ago.