Sleeping Man in India Escapes Lion Attack? No, That’s an AI-Generated Video

The channel which first shared this clip of a sleeping man and lions in India regularly shared AI-generated content.

An AI-generated video of a sleeping man being paid a visit by lions has gone viral with the false claim that it shows footage of a real incident in Gujarat, India.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

A video showing grainy CCTV footage of a man sleeping on the side of the road being smelled and then ignored by lions has gone viral on social media as a recent video from India.

An archived version of this post can be seen here.

(Source: Instagram/Screenshot)

(Archived versions of more posts sharing this claim can be seen here, here, and here.)

Is it true?: No, it is an AI-generated video which was first shared by a Brazilian YouTube channel.

How do we know?: We noticed a few strange details about the video when we watched it carefully.

• Firstly, the signboards in the video do not show any real Indian language, but showed gibberish text.

The text on the signboards don't make sense in any existing Indian language.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

• Secondly, the man's body is also oddly placed while he sleeps, as his legs seem to be angled perpendicular to his torso.

The sleeping man's body is at an odd angle.

(Source: Instagram/Altered by The Quint)

• While looking for more details about the video, we came across a post on X (formerly Twitter), which had credited the clip to 'theworldofbeasts-d4x' and also mentioned Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The post credited the video to 'theworldofbeasts-d4x'.

(Source: X/Altered by The Quint)

• Taking a cue from this, we looked for an account with this name across the internet.

• This led us to a YouTube channel with the same name, which had shared this clip on 6 June as one from Gujarat, India.

• However, we saw that its description mentioned that it showed "Altered or synthetic content."

The video carried a specific tag.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

• A closer look at the channel's description said that it was from Brazil and that the videos it shared were designed "with the help of AI."

The channel's description gave us more information.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

• The channel regularly shares AI-generated video featuring animals.

The channel shared AI-generated videos.

(Source: YouTube/Screenshot)

What did detectors say?: The Misinformation Combat Alliance's (MCA) Deepfake Analysis Unit (DAU), also analysed this video using a range of AI-generated content detectors.

• When submitted to AI or Not, the detector said that the clip was "likely AI-generated" for some frames of the video, while saying that it was "likely human" for others.

AI or Not was uncertain whether the clip was entirely made by AI.

(Source: DAU/Altered by The Quint)

Was it AI, however, was "quite confident" that the visual was created by AI.

Was it AI showed more confidence in the clip being an AI-generated one.

(Source: DAU)

Hive AI's tool, however, said that it video was not AI-generated.

Hive's tool did not find any elements of the video to be AI-generated.

(Source: DAU)

Conclusion: An AI-generated video of a sleeping man being paid a visit by lions has gone viral with the false claim that it shows footage of a real incident in Gujarat, India.

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