Despite AI videos becoming better year by year, it’s the really low-quality ones, like this aquarium collapse in California, that garner the most attention.
The internet is full of AI-rendered videos. There is everything, from bunnies on a trampoline to 100-foot-long snakes in the Amazon. But the latest one to catch the eye of the gullible public is the aquarium collapse in California.
The footage shows a standing aquarium in a mall. It looks to be around 50 feet tall. The AI video shows the top of the aquarium beginning to flood before the whole front glass pane comes tumbling down. It floods the atrium, washes people away, and crushes others under the glass.
The AI video claims that 50 people died. But it’s all a lie.
AI Aquarium Collapse
As soon as you look at the video for more than a second, the cheap AI generation is clear. There are a few key tells.
The first and most obvious is the way the water moves. It seemingly comes from nowhere, it sloshes over the top, through the glass, and pours in from multiple places at once with no valid source. The way it moves across the ground is completely unrealistic, also.
The second huge tell is the people on the ground. They melt and mix into each other, changing shape and warping. Their number change, and they slip all over the room. Most of them don’t even look like people to begin with. As the water from the AI aquarium collapse washes over them, many of them simply disappear. They’re not washed away, they just vanish.
The final clue is the fish. The aquarium was full of fish before the collapse, but as the water flowed out and over the people in the mall, they all disappeared. The footage shows very clear water flowing over the people, which is also wrong. But, despite the clear water, there are no visible fish.
Keep an eye out for AI slop videos. It doesn’t take a lot to spot the fakes. There are always glaring tells. It didn’t stop the video from trending, though.