Our government employees isn't learning
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And apparently, neither is OpenAI
A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a global conference in Brazil this week, causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.
Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.
A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The state department said it took “full responsibility” for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed the slide deck before the event.
The map showed Nigeria, where the US currently has several hundred troops deployed, as landlocked in the Sahara desert. Mozambique, which is in south-eastern Africa, was relocated to the Horn of Africa, while Côte d’Ivoire in west Africa was placed on the other side of the continent.
Screenshots of the map first appeared in a Substack post by the Aids expert Emily Bass and were widely shared on LinkedIn, with one post garnering about 40,000 views.
“Whoever created and approved this slide did not know where countries in Africa are and did not care to check their work,” wrote Matt Petit, who focuses on AI and geopolitics at the Atlantic Council, in the post.]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/30/government-map-mislabels-african-countries
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The US Department of Agriculture listed Wakanda as a free-trade partner - despite it being a fictional country.
A USDA spokesperson said the Kingdom of Wakanda was added to the list by accident during a staff test.
The department's online tariff tracker hosted a detailed list of goods the two nations apparently traded, including ducks, donkeys and dairy cows.
In the Marvel universe, Wakanda is the fictional East African home country of superhero Black Panther.
The fictional country was removed soon from the list after US media first queried it, prompting jokes that the countries had started a trade war.
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