Widely shared on social media, the atmospheric black and white shots – a mother and her child starving in the Great Depression; an exhausted soldier in the Vietnam war – may look at first like real historic documents.

But they were created by artificial intelligence, and researchers fear they are muddying the waters of real history.

“AI has caused a tsunami of fake history, especially images,” said Jo Hedwig Teeuwisse, a Dutch historian who debunks false claims online.

“In some cases, they even make an AI version of a real old photo. It is really weird, especially when the original is very famous.”