Spokane, Washington, Police Reportedly Circulated Purported AI-Generated Image as Authentic Photo of Injured Dog

Detectives in Spokane, Washington, reportedly created a purported AI-generated image as a joke depicting a real undercover officer holding an injured dachshund. A supervisor reportedly mistook it for an authentic photograph and the image was released to news media after correcting an earlier claim that the dog had died. The Spokesman-Review published a cropped version before the department disclosed that the scene was fabricated and began reviewing its verification procedures.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 6 Socioeconomic & Environmental
• Primary risk subdomain: 6.3 Economic and cultural devaluation of human effort

The Spokane Parks Department used generative AI to create a flyer that plagiarized a local artist's distinct style and commercial sticker design, devaluing his professional livelihood.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The Spokane Police Department unintentionally released a fabricated, AI-generated image of an officer and a rescued dog to the public and media.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Unintentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incidents were caused by human errors, specifically city employees generating and distributing AI content without proper verification, disclosure, or adherence to city policies.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Limited Risk: The systems used were generative AI image creators. Under the EU AI Act, these pose limited risk but require transparency obligations, such as notifying users that the content is AI-generated, which the city's policy failed to enforce in these instances.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI purpose: Image Generation; Visual Art Generation
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Synthetic media generation technology developers, Synthetic image generation technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Synthetic media creators, Spokane Police Department, Law enforcement
• Alleged harmed parties: Undercover law enforcement officers, The Spokesman-Review, Privacy, News organizations, Law enforcement, Journalistic integrity, General public of Spokane, Washington, General public, Epistemic integrity

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Negligible. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 2
• People reportedly harmed: 1
• People reportedly exposed: 1000

Potential causes

Management

• Inadequate AI Policy Enforcement: Management failed to enforce the existing disclosure policy for AI content.
• Lack of Employee AI Training: Employees lacked training on ethical AI use and how to identify AI images.

Technology

• High Competence in Mimicking Reality: Generative AI creates highly realistic images that mimic real photos.
• Model Scouring and Replication: AI models scour the internet and replicate artists' styles without consent.

Data Inputs

• Training on Copyrighted Art: AI models are trained on copyrighted works without the artists' permission.
• Lack of Consent in Training Data: Creators did not sign up or agree to have their work used for AI training.

Human Factors

• Blind Trust in Shared Media: Staff trusted the source of the image without verifying its authenticity.
• Failure to Disclose AI Usage: An employee created a flyer using AI but did not disclose its computer origin.
• Creation of Joke Images by Staff: Detectives created a fake image as a joke, which was then mistaken for real.

Process and Methods

• Lack of Image Verification Process: No verification or check-and-balance procedures were in place before sharing.
• Inadequate Internal Review: Internal review failed to spot obvious visual anomalies in the generated image.
• Failure to Disclose AI Content: The city policy requiring disclosure of AI-generated content was bypassed.

Regulatory Environment

• Inadequate Intellectual Property Laws: Current copyright laws struggle to protect artists from AI scraping.
• Lack of AI Standards: Absence of external standards for identifying and labeling AI-generated media.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report provides clear, detailed accounts of both incidents, including the perspectives of the city officials, the police department, and the affected artist. The roles of the AI systems are explicitly stated, and there are no conflicting accounts of the events.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI models used by the employees are not named.
• Alternative interpretations: The police incident could be interpreted primarily as a misinformation risk (3.1), while the clocktower incident is primarily an intellectual property/devaluation risk (6.3).

Two localized incidents of generative AI misuse by Spokane municipal employees resulted in minor public relations embarrassment and copyright plagiarism. Due to the local, non-malicious, and administrative nature of these events, they pose negligible national security implications across all assessed categories.

• Overall national security impact: Negligible
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: United States
• Alleged perpetrator: Spokane city employees

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident represents a localized, resolved administrative issue with no active or impending national security threat.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The generative AI tools were directly operated by human employees to create specific images, with no autonomous decision-making by the AI.
• Novelty: Established threat. Accidental public release of AI-generated content and plagiarism using generative tools are well-established issues without novel technical threat vectors.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident involved local municipal PR and promotional materials with no impact on physical systems, critical infrastructure, or human safety.
• Information security: Negligible. The release of the fabricated dog photo was an accidental local PR mistake rather than a coordinated state-sponsored information warfare or intelligence operation.
• Sovereignty: Negligible. While the incident involved local government departments, it did not threaten national sovereignty, state authority, or core federal government operations.
• Economic security: Negligible. The incident involved localized plagiarism of a local artist's work, presenting no threat to national economic stability or strategic technological advantages.
• Societal stability: Negligible. The incidents caused minor local embarrassment and copyright concerns but did not threaten social cohesion, civil liberties, or population safety on a national scale.