Leshan Giant Buddha Cleaning Video Was AI-Generated, Officials Confirm

The footage spread rapidly across social media platforms, depicting maintenance workers suspended on ropes as they seemed to pick debris from the statue's enormous ears and nose. Viewers watched the clips pull out pigeons, leaves and other debris lodged in the Buddha's crevices, while monkeys nearby were shown playfully snatching hard hats from the crew.

The Leshan Giant Buddha Management Committee moved quickly to debunk the video, stating that the whole clip had been produced by artificial intelligence. The hyper-realistic look of the footage had helped it travel widely before the denial was issued.

The real statue sits 71 meters (233 feet) tall at the confluence of the Min, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in Sichuan, China. Carved out of a cliff face during the Tang dynasty, it is the largest and tallest stone Buddha statue in the world and is regarded as a feat of ancient engineering.

The episode has been held up as an example of the growth of "AI slop" — fabricated content that circulates as if it were genuine. As artificial intelligence tools become more capable and more widely available, ordinary users are finding it harder to tell authentic footage from manufactured material.

The problem is compounded by a surge of bot accounts that mass-produce fake, clickbait videos dressed up as cultural or educational content.