A disturbing AI-generated image of a blonde child being placed into a car has gone viral — and experts say it’s fuelling dangerous misinformation in the desperate search for missing South Australian boy Gus Lamont.

The image, shared thousands of times on Facebook, falsely claims a boy resembling Gus was seen with an “unfamiliar man” about 100km from Yunta — the remote outback town where the four-year-old vanished from his family’s sheep station on September 27.

The investigation is about to enter its third week on the family’s 60,000ha homestead.

Jeannie Marie Paterson is a Professor of Law (consumer protection), the co-founding director of the Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Ethics (CAIDE) and a founding co-director of the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics.

She told 7NEWS.com.au there is huge concern surrounding the rise of AI.

“A lot of the concern raised about AI has been about AI becoming salient and harming humans,” she told 7NEWS.com.au.

“As it has turned out, one of the risks to humans and societies has come from generative AI’s ability to mimic humans.

“This has led to young people relying on chatbots for friendship and advice, on a totally false basis of assumed care.

“AI chatbots are not friends. They make money for their deployer by prolonging the conversation. And they are simply prediction machines.

“The increasing capacity of generative AI has also led to a torrent of increasingly life like images. (As you examples show – cheap and easy to make).

“We are well past having the ability to identify ‘fakes’ from reality. There are AI influencers, actors and now also AI deprecations of real or imagined events — often involving peoples’ lives and with the capacity to cause deep hurt, or even derail police investigations.”

A post of August Lamont in the arms of an unknown man has gone viral online, with social media users believing he had been found.

The viral post is just one of several fake claims flooding social media, with authorities now battling a wave of AI-generated content muddying the facts and possibly hindering the search as social media users help spread false information.

Meta’s AI search tool — used across Facebook and Instagram — has also come under fire, with users reporting false results including claims that Gus’s toy was found “with blood on it” and that the boy had been located alive.

7NEWS.com.au found AI image generating software and, within moments, was able to create images similar to those being spread online.

Paterson said that Australia has the power to ban such images, and even businesses should take advantage of using real people over AI.

“We can pass laws to deal with all of this. Many of them are already in place: Promotions on misleading conduct in trade or commerce, defamation, fraud or inmate image abuse all apply to synthetic or AI generated images,” she said.

“There is an ethical issue here as well. Everyone needs to ask themselves whether they want to live in a world of fakes. That means not ever knowing what to believe and a world where artists and creatives may be out of a job.

“I am seeing not just social media fakes images but also AI generated images being used for workplace training videos and promotional images for a range of organisations.

“My question would be ‘why would you use AI when you could use a person (and in the case of actors and models pay them)‘.

“I’d like to see business and agencies take [a] stand based on ethics and values and retain the real – human to human interactions are important to use as individuals and a society.“

SA Police Assistant Commissioner Ian Parrott has urged the public to stop speculating online and stick to verified updates.

“There’s no evidence of foul play,” he said.

“We believe Gus simply wandered off.”

While police have scaled back the search, the investigation remains active.

Gus’s family describe him as a shy but adventurous child and say he was a good walker but had never left the property alone before.

He is described as Caucasian with long blonde, curly hair and he was last seen wearing a grey sun hat, cobalt blue long-sleeve shirt with a yellow Minion on the front, light grey pants, and boots.

Anyone with information is urged to contact police immediately.