US AI map mislabels Africa at AIDS conference

At the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a US State Department presentation displayed an AI-generated map of Africa that mislabeled every country. The map, shown during a presentation by Jeff Graham, the US health envoy overseeing PEPFAR, contained a watermark indicating it was made with OpenAI tools. Errors included Nigeria placed in the Sahara Desert, Mozambique relocated to the Horn of Africa, and Ivory Coast on the wrong side of the continent. The State Department apologized, attributing the error to a team member who hastily altered the slide deck. The incident sparked criticism from former officials like Willis family, who linked it to staffing cuts, and renewed debate over AI use in government. OpenAI began an internal review. The controversy occurred amid ongoing US reviews of international health spending, including plans to phase out PEPFAR in South Africa.