Woman fined over AI image of bear that sparked panic in Russia

A woman living in Russia’s Far East was fined this week after an artificial intelligence-generated photo of a bear, made as a prank, went viral and launched an actual search, regional courts reported.

Officials across Russia are on high alert following a series of fatal attacks this year. Experts say a combination of growing bear populations and poor harvests of pine nuts and berries has heightened the likelihood of human encounters.

The resident from the Magdagachi settlement in the Amur region generated the photo of a large brown bear walking along a local street using ChatGPT and sent it to a friend in September.

“The joke quickly got out of control. The photograph of the bear spread through messaging apps, and police began receiving alarmed calls from residents,” the Amur courts’ press service said in a statement, noting that the district head dispatched wildlife rangers to deal with the phantom animal.

After calling police to confess to creating the image, the woman was ordered by a court this week to pay a fine of 15,000 roubles ($178).

In mid-September, another woman in the eastern Transbaikal region was fined 30,000 roubles for posting a fake picture of a bear in a village, legal news agency RAPSI reported.

At least 26 people have died in bear attacks since the spring, when hungry animals emerge from hibernation, according to news agency RIA Novosti.

Last month, the government said it was drafting urgent plans to control the brown bear population, which has more than doubled over the past 30 years to 308,000, partially due to shorter and milder winters.

Over 3,440 bears deemed a threat to humans have been killed since the start of the year, according to data published by state news agency TASS on October 10.