AI-generated images falsely claiming to show a new Nigerian N5,000 banknote featuring President Tinubu were spread on Facebook, with users attempting to crop out the 'Grok' watermark that indicated the images were AI-generated.
Social media users on Facebook shared false claims that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had unveiled a new N5,000 banknote featuring President Bola Tinubu's portrait. The posts, dated January 26, 2025, claimed the CBN Governor announced this decision to honor Tinubu's contributions during his presidency. However, the images were generated using Grok, an artificial intelligence tool from the social media platform X. Users attempted to crop out the 'Grok' watermark to hide the AI-generated nature of the images. The CBN had previously announced plans for N5,000 notes in 2012 but backtracked on these plans in 2022. There are no credible reports that the CBN intends to create new N5,000 notes in 2025, and such an announcement would have made headlines. Africa Check has previously debunked similar AI-generated misinformation claims.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.