RIO DE JANEIRO: A US government presentation at an international conference in Brazil came under scrutiny after it displayed a map of Africa with every country incorrectly labelled, prompting widespread criticism and online discussion.
Reuters reviewed footage from a presentation delivered at the AIDS 2026 conference in Rio de Janeiro, where the inaccurate map appeared during a session outlining the US State Department’s new global health agreements.
An examination of the image found that it contained an artificial intelligence watermark indicating it had been created using OpenAI tools. The company did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The US State Department acknowledged the mistake, saying it accepted “full responsibility” for the confusion and explained that the map had been inserted by a staff member who made last-minute changes to the presentation before the event.
The errors on the map were extensive. Nigeria, where the United States has several hundred troops stationed, was incorrectly shown as a landlocked country in the Sahara Desert. Mozambique, located in southeastern Africa, was placed in the Horn of Africa, while Ivory Coast was mistakenly moved from West Africa to the opposite side of the continent.
Screenshots of the presentation first surfaced in a Substack post by AIDS expert Emily Bass before being widely shared on LinkedIn, where one post received around 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 at the Atlantic Council, in the post.
