These videos of people retrieving iPhones from floating ship containers are AI-generated
Several videos (here, here, here, here and here) have gone viral on social media showing a floating shipping container supposedly filled with iPhones, with people seen trying to retrieve them. Different clips of the container drifting and individuals collecting the devices are circulating online. Let’s find out the truth behind these videos.
Claim: The viral videos show people retrieving iPhones from a floating shipping container.
Fact: The videos are AI-generated. The clips contain several visual inconsistencies consistent with AI-generated content. Further, the original uploads came from an Instagram account that posts AI-created content. AI detection tools like Hive flagged the videos as 99% AI-generated. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
To find the truth, we first checked for any credible reports of such an incident but found none. We then closely examined the videos and noticed several inconsistencies. In some clips, the iPhone boxes appear unusually large, which is not normal. In other instances, the boxes display only the Apple logo without any product image or text, not typical of real packaging. We also observed unnatural movements of the people seen collecting and carrying the boxes, a common sign of AI-generated footage. Now, let’s examine each video separately.
Video 1
In this video, which shows people retrieving iPhones, we examined the inconsistencies mentioned earlier. To trace the origin of the clip, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the original upload on an Instagram account named oye_sanki_1. The bio of this account clearly states that it posts experimental videos created using Artificial Intelligence. This confirms that the viral clip is AI-generated. We also found several other AI-generated videos posted on the same account (here, here and here).
To verify whether the video was AI-generated, we ran it through the AI detection tool Hive, which flagged it as 99.9% AI-generated. This further confirms that the video is indeed AI-generated.
Video 2
This video also shows two people retrieving iPhones from a floating container, and it contains several inconsistencies as noted earlier. When we ran this video through the AI detection tool Hive, it too showed a 99.9% likelihood of being AI-generated, confirming that the video is not real.
Video 3
This video makes a similar claim, even stating that they found an iPhone 16 Pro Max. However, the box shown is unusually large and does not resemble genuine Apple packaging, as noted earlier. Running this video through Hive showed a 99% likelihood of being AI-generated, confirming that this clip, too, is not from a real incident.
To sum up, the videos of people retrieving iPhones from floating ship containers are AI-generated.