“A viral video shows Benjamin Netanyahu with six fingers, which is cited as evidence that the footage is AI-generated.”

The video is authentic and is not AI-generated. A closer look at the video released by the Israeli Government Press Office shows five fingers on each hand. Users visually mistook his hand's hypothenar eminence, the name for the bulge at the base of a human little finger, for a sixth finger. The video was even scanned using AI and Deepfake detection tools and found a 0.1% likelihood that it was AI-generated.

A screenshot from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 12 press briefing doesn’t prove he is dead, or that the video is generated with artificial intelligence. A closer look shows he has five fingers on both hands. But upon closer look at the video, Netanyahu’s hands looked normal. A trick of light likely made part of his palm appear to be an extra finger.

Forensic analysis of the purported 'six-finger' frame using AI detection tools (e.g., Hive Moderation, Deepware Scanner) shows no evidence of generative artifacts. Pixel inconsistencies are attributable to compression and lighting, not synthesis.

Netanyahu is alive. The March 12 press conference video is authentic, published directly by the Israeli Government Press Office on YouTube. The apparent sixth finger is a shadow cast by a crease in his palm during a hand gesture, visible in a single still frame and absent in every frame before and after it. No AI forensic analysis has found evidence the video was artificially generated. Distorted or extra fingers are a known and well-documented artifact of AI-generated imagery, particularly from earlier generative models, which is precisely why the freeze-frame became such effective fuel for the rumor.

One particular frame quickly became the focal point of the debate. In that still image, Netanyahu's hand appears distorted while gesturing near a microphone. Several users claimed that the image appeared to show six fingers instead of five, something frequently cited as a tell-tale sign of AI image generation. Generative AI tools have historically struggled to render human hands accurately.

Look out for a surplus of fingers, legs, arms and odd-looking hands in still images that are AI-generated. A picture purportedly showing the US president, Joe Biden, and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, celebrating Donald Trump's indictment was circulated on Twitter in April 2023. Signs that it could have been generated by AI include Kamala Harris's right hand having six fingers.

“These are 2D image generators that have absolutely no concept of the three-dimensional geometry of something like a hand,” says Prof Peter Bentley, a computer scientist and author based at University College London. If it can't understand the 3D nature of a hand or the context of a situation, it will struggle to accurately recreate it.

Fact-checkers and AI tools debunked the six-finger illusion as a camera angle effect and confirmed Netanyahu is alive, dismissing death claims as misinformation. The drama began when a clip of Netanyahu speaking at a podium was posted to his official social media accounts. But eagle-eyed viewers seized on a single frame that, due to a peculiar camera angle and perhaps a bit of digital distortion, appeared to show Netanyahu with six fingers on his right hand.

A video of Israeli PM Netanyahu sparked online debate, with users claiming AI manipulation due to a distorted hand appearing to have six fingers. However, fact-checkers and AI chatbot Grok dismissed the claim, attributing the anomaly to an optical illusion.

Analysts and online verification tools said the viral screenshot was taken from a single frame of a video address, where Netanyahu was pointing with his hand while speaking. The angle of the hand, combined with shadows and visual distortion in the frame, created the illusion of an extra finger. Fact-checkers said the full video clearly shows the Israeli leader has five fingers on each hand.

AI image generators have so much trouble with hands, because hands are not something that follows a fixed pattern. Add into the mix that a hand can rotate into a variety of angles that make it seem like it has less or more fingers, and you have a case that's nearly impossible for an AI image generator to get right most of the time.

Like that extra finger in an AI-generated image, some of the risks often slip by unnoticed. With these six-fingered gloves, we want to highlight AI's risks and the importance of identifying and mitigating them. AI still tends to randomly fabricate information, which can get you into serious trouble without human oversight. Also known as hallucination, this can cause misinformation or unreliable content to spread.

Extra fingers or distorted hands are a well-known artifact in early generative AI images and videos, often used as a heuristic for detecting synthetic media, though optical illusions, lighting, and compression can produce similar effects in real footage.

In the past six months, AI video generators have become so good at creating realistic videos that they often dupe the casual scroller. Telltale artifacts that used to give the game away, such as morphing faces and shape-shifting objects, are seen far less frequently. The key to identifying AI-generated videos, as with any AI modality, lies in AI literacy. 'Understanding that [AI technologies] are growing and having that core idea of 'something I'm seeing could be generated by AI,' is more important than, say, individual cues,' said Lyu, who is the director of UB's Media Forensic Lab.

Nevertheless, the fidelity of AI-generated videos remains far from perfect, with synthesized content frequently exhibiting visual artifacts, such as temporally inconsistent motion, physically implausible trajectories, unnatural object deformations, and local blurring, that undermine realism and user trust. Precise detection and spatial localization of these artifacts are of critical importance.

wave of conspiracy theories with some users claiming an apparent extra finger proves the video was generated by artificial intelligence. The clip in question is from a March 12th address by Netanyahu. Several users who zoomed in argued the frame appeared to show six digits, a thumb, index finger, and what looked like an additional finger near