This video showing a shark stuck in a tyre being rescued on the shore is AI-generated
A viral video (here and here) shows a shark struggling with a tyre stuck around its body. A husky dog appears to notice the struggling shark near the shore, after which some people arrive, remove the tyre, clean the shark, and help it return to the sea. This video is being widely shared as a real incident. Let’s find out the truth behind it.
Claim: The viral video shows a real shark being rescued after struggling with a tyre stuck on its body.
Fact: The viral video is AI-generated. It shows several visual inconsistencies, is originally uploaded by a TikTok channel known for AI content, and is confirmed as AI-generated using Google’s SynthID tool. Hence, the claim is FALSE.
While closely examining the video, several inconsistencies can be spotted. For example, when the tyre is being cut off, it breaks — yet a black hole-like object remains visible in the same spot. Additionally, after algae are removed from the shark’s body, barnacles suddenly appear, which is unusual. Such inconsistencies are commonly found in AI-generated or deepfake videos (here and here), suggesting that this video may also have been created using AI.
Further, to trace the origin of the video, we performed a reverse image search on Google, which led us to the original upload on a TikTok handle named TeddygenAII. This account is exclusively dedicated to generative AI content, and upon reviewing it, we found several similar videos depicting dramatic rescues of whales and sharks (here, here and here), clearly created using generative AI.
Furthermore, suspecting the video to be AI-generated, we used Google’s ‘SynthID’ tool — a platform designed to detect content created by its AI models. The tool confirmed that the video was indeed generated using Google AI.
To sum up, the video showing a shark stuck in a tyre being rescued on the shore is AI-generated.