The Yahoo Finance Live team discusses the risks of AI and misinformation, Amazon One launching an age verification method for alcohol sales using one's hand, Walmart+ members access to pet telehealth, and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav being booed at Boston University's graduation ceremony.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's take a look at some of the trending stories of the day. Up first, a fake image of an explosion near the Pentagon set off a brief panic today, momentarily causing the markets to dip during the morning session. The image in question was first posted on Twitter showing black smoke billowing near the Pentagon with the text reports of an explosion.

That image was promptly shared by a handful of accounts, including Russia's state-controlled media RT and an account claiming to belong to Bloomberg. That prompted the Arlington Fire Department to put out this tweet saying that there is no explosion or incident taking place at or near the Pentagon. And there is no immediate danger or hazards to the public.

Guys, you know, we, kind of, followed this in real time. And it really does point to two key things that we talk a lot about on the show. Number one, what this paid to verify environment looks like on Twitter today because the account that shared this did have a blue check mark. Because remember, today, it's not about verification. It's about paying to get verified.

The other bit though is, I would argue, a little more concerning, which is all indications are that this was an AI-generated image. This was not checked when it was shared on Twitter. And that raises a lot of questions about how quickly misinformation can move. And to be clear, we're not sharing the image because we don't want to add to that. But it certainly demonstrated that the fears that people have about how AI could be misused.

SEANA SMITH: It does. And it also strengthens the arguments that we've heard from Elon Musk, from Steve Wozniak, and the like saying that maybe we should pause the development of AI given the fact that there are so many concerns about misinformation and how quickly that can spread online. But, Akiko, you bring up a great point.