AI images and internet rumors spread confusion about ICE agent involved in shooting

An original still image from an eyewitness video shows the masked ICE agent who shot Renee Nicole Good (Left). Users on social media "unmasked" the agent using Grok (Right). Experts warn AI cannot "unmask" individuals. NPR is publishing both images to show how AI is being used to manipulate images of news events. Screenshots by NPR/Image by Courtney Theophin/NPR hide caption

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Screenshots by NPR/Image by Courtney Theophin/NPR

In the hours after a fatal shooting of Renee Good, 37, in Minneapolis, an image of the ICE agent who took the shots began to circulate.

While the agent wore a mask in eyewitness videos taken of the event, he appeared to be unmasked in many of the social media posts. That image appeared to have been generated by xAI's generative AI chatbot, Grok, in response to users on X asking the bot to "unmask" the agent.

NPR is publishing both images to show how AI is being used to manipulate real evidence of news events, but using AI to try to "unmask" anyone is ill-advised, according to experts.

"AI-powered enhancement has a tendency to hallucinate facial details leading to an enhanced image that may be visually clear, but that may also be devoid of reality with respect to biometric identification," Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley who specializes in the analysis of digital images, wrote to NPR in an email.

Regardless, the AI-generated image began to circulate late Wednesday, along with a name — Steve Grove. The origin of that name was not immediately clear, but by Thursday morning, it was leading to an outpouring of anger towards at least two Steve Groves who are in no way linked to the shooting.

One was the owner of a gun shop in Springfield, Mo., named Steven Grove. That Grove awoke to discover his Facebook page under attack. "I never go by 'Steve,'" Steven Grove told the Springfield Daily Citizen. "And then, of course, I'm not in Minnesota. I don't work for ICE, and I have, you know, 20 inches of hair on my head, but whatever."

The second Steve Grove was the publisher of the Minnesota Star Tribune. In a statement, the paper said it was monitoring what it believed to be a "coordinated online disinformation campaign."

"We encourage people looking for factual information reported and written by trained journalists, not bots, to follow and subscribe to the Minnesota Star Tribune," the paper wrote.

Meanwhile, the Star Tribune and others, including NPR, have identified the name of the ICE agent as Jonathan Ross. Court documents show Ross was dragged by a car during another traffic stop in June of last year in Bloomington, Minn.