A collage (here, here, and here) of three images featuring a gigantic mobile phone has been doing the rounds on social media. This was allegedly discovered in the biblical character King Goliath’s tomb. The images also show a few humans at work. We fact-check these images in this article.
Claim: Photos of giant mobile phone unearthed in King Goliath’s tomb.
Fact: This image was created using artificial intelligence tools. There are no credible news reports to prove the discovery of such a mobile. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the authenticity of the viral claim, we searched the internet using relevant keywords. This search did not yield any credible news reports to substantiate the discovery of a gigantic mobile phone in King Goliath’s tomb. Mainstream media outlets would definitely report such news, but we found none in this case.
While closely observing the photos in the viral post, we found a few anomalies that are common to images generated using artificial intelligence tools. The faces of people in these images look distorted, the fingers on their hands look elongated, and a few fingers look incomplete in some cases. Suspecting that the images may have been artificially generated, we initiated a verification process.
To analyse these images, we ran them through an online AI content detection tool called Hive Moderation. The results of this analysis reported that the likeliness of these images being generated using AI is 73.3%.
We then checked the images on ‘sight engine,‘ which said the images are generated 99% using AI. Additionally, we performed an analysis of True Media, which found substantial evidence of manipulation in the images.
Additionally, the biblical character Goliath was a giant who belonged to the Philistine tribe. In 2016, CNN reported the discovery of a 3000-year-old Philistine cemetery in Southern Israel. As on date, there are no news reports of archaeologists unearthing modern technological tools like the mobile phone (invented in 1973) at this site.
To sum up, AI-generated images are falsely being shared as visuals of Goliath’s mobile phone discovered at his tomb.
