AI-Created Hoax Draws Thousands to Dublin Streets for Non-Existent Halloween Parade

Thousands of Dubliners gathered last week along a route from Parnell Square to Temple Bar, expecting a Halloween parade that never arrived.

The fictional event, purportedly organized by Irish arts ensemble Macnas, was actually the product of My Spirit Halloween, a website hosted in Pakistan known for generating AI-driven news.

The fictional parade spread across news and social media platforms, boosted by Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) tactics used by the website.

My Spirit Halloween's owner, Nazir Ali, admitted to using ChatGPT for content creation, with further human optimisation, to drive traffic for advertising revenue.

The website owner said that the article went viral on TikTok and Instagram but once notified the parade was fake, they quickly removed it, calling it a "genuine mistake".