The image on the right was generated by Zila Abka in February. She says she created it with Microsoft’s Image Creator. On the left is the viral image that Amirul Shah said he created also using an AI image generator tool.
Zila Abka is a school teacher in Malaysia. She is active in the Facebook group Prompters Malaya, a gathering place for mostly Malaysian AI artists to show their work.After the phrase “all eyes on Rafah” started going viral, Abka said she wrote a prompt for the AI tool to create an image that would have the phrase spelled out by white tents amid dense rows of other tent encampments.
“If the aim is to spread awareness,” Abka said about the version of the image that went viral, “then I think I should thank that person.”Amirul Shah is a college student and photographer in Malaysia. The “all eyes on Rafah” image he created has been shared nearly 50 million times on Instagram.The two do not know each other, nor have they ever communicated.
Amirul Shah added his generated image to an Instagram template that was amplified by celebrities like Dua Lipa and Bella Hadid.When Shah was reached for an interview, he denied copying Abka’s creation. Instead, he shared a different version of events.Microsoft’s Image Creator, the same service Abka used, but he claims he can’t remember.
He said he was giving all sorts of Gaza-related AI images a try as a form of activism, not angling for virality.