As Monkeys Escape Onto the Streets of St. Louis, AI Photos Add to the Chaos

2 hours ago 1

one uses tools in a workshop, several sit and jump by a street sign, and a group climbs on a statue outside a building.

This week in Missouri, a band of vervet monkeys and a single goat were spotted roaming the streets of St. Louis. But while it made international headlines, it was further complicated by an avalanche of AI-generated photos.

When I used to work for various press agencies, I would occasionally use my Photoshop skills to make skits of certain news events. But I was the only person in the office who could make silly composites. In 2026, anyone and everyone can make such edits in seconds thanks to apps like Google Gemini and ChatGPT.

Three capuchin monkeys are in a ceramics studio, sitting on tables and working with clay. Art supplies, shelves, and pottery tools are visible throughout the well-lit workspace.

Two monkeys wearing safety glasses sit at a workbench, using tools and fire to perform what looks like glassblowing in a workshop setting. Various equipment and supplies are visible on the tables around them.

Four monkeys are gathered around a workbench in a workshop filled with tools and equipment, appearing to use the tools as if working on projects. The scene is indoors with snowflake decorations on the window.

Three monkeys sit around pottery wheels shaping clay pots in a ceramics studio, surrounded by shelves holding finished pottery pieces and tools.

When news broke that at least four vervet monkeys had broken loose, people immediately began to reach for an AI model. A city official addressed the issue.

“We are aware that alleged sightings and videos have been shared through social media however these posts cannot be verified and are not used to conduct enforcement actions,” Justen Hauser, Environmental Health Bureau Chief, tells Fox 2 Now.

A professor from St. Louis University (SLU) tells the local TV station that there has “definitely been an explosion” of AI photos recently.

“I think a year ago the image and the video generation models were still giving people an extra finger and they had crazy looking shadows,” says SLU professor Abby Stylianou.

“That difference in the quality of those results and the believability in the AI-generated images has changed so rapidly.”

Four monkeys and a goat take a group selfie with a smartphone in front of a large, illuminated, classical-style building with columns and American flags.

As for the real monkeys, authorities never found them and believe they are now being harbored by an individual.

“It’s less monkeys on the loose, and it’s more an issue of prohibited animals in the city now,” Environmental Health Bureau Chief Justen Hauser tells STLPR. “The information we’re receiving now, yes, suggests that the monkeys are no longer at large, and that people have the monkeys.”

It’s unclear what happened to the goat.

Read Entire Article