A Malaysian man is facing up to three years in a Singaporean prison — after an ill-conceived text containing AI slop shut down the city-state’s largest reservoir for days.
According to the BBC, the bizarre incident started when the 30-year-old Ye Lin sent his colleague a photo of a saltwater crocodile — entirely generated by Google Gemini — lurking in the Pandan Reservoir, a 435-acre basin in Singapore’s western residential district. To put the body of water into perspective, the Central Park Reservoir in the heart of New York City is roughly a quarter of the size, standing at just 106 acres.
Though it isn’t known exactly how, Ye’s image evidently kicked off a dramatic game of telephone, which eventually made its way to officials at Singapore’s national water agency.
As the BBC reports, the reservoir ended up getting shut down as water agency officials and national park staff trawled the waters in search of the nonexistent crocodile. Groups whose activities center around the reservoir, like the Singapore Canoe Federation and the Singapore Rowing Association, likewise suspended their operations as the search commenced.
