Older Singaporeans Increasingly Using AI to Create Fake Historical Images

A growing number of older Singaporeans are turning to generative AI tools to produce and share fabricated images of the country's past, sparking concerns about historical misinformation spreading across social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Historyogi, a popular TikTok creator and podcast host focused on Singapore's history, told Singapore Samizdat that the problem has become widespread. "It's become a huge problem on Facebook and Instagram. It's mostly boomers using AI to alter or generate entirely fake images. Even the accompanying text is AI," he said. The fabricated content often depicts nostalgic scenes that never happened — from imagined street views of old Singapore to altered photographs of historical events — designed to evoke emotional reactions and drive engagement among older demographics less familiar with AI-generated media.

The trend highlights a growing blind spot in Singapore's otherwise proactive approach to AI governance. While the government has rolled out the Model AI Governance Framework for generative and agentic AI, and agencies like IMDA have published guidelines on AI safety and content authenticity, the enforcement gap on social platforms remains significant. Older users, who are among the heaviest consumers of Facebook content in Singapore, are disproportionately vulnerable to AI-generated misinformation because the tools used to create these images are now accessible to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection.

Singapore's media literacy efforts, including the Digital for Life movement and the National AI Impact Programme's goal of training 100,000 Singaporeans to be "AI bilingual," have largely focused on workforce productivity rather than consumer-level AI literacy. The Historyogi case suggests a need for targeted public education on identifying AI-generated content, particularly for senior audiences who may not be aware that image-generation tools have reached consumer-grade quality.

Why it matters for Singapore: As one of the world's most digitally connected societies, Singapore faces an acute version of a global problem: the democratisation of AI image generation is outpacing the public's ability to distinguish real from synthetic. The country's strength in AI governance — producing frameworks that other nations study — must now extend to consumer protection against AI-generated misinformation. Without targeted digital literacy campaigns for older demographics, the very tools that power Singapore's AI ambition could erode trust in shared historical memory and public discourse.