Real vs Fake: The Era of AI
Who would have thought that a photo of Pope Francis wearing a white, oversized, Balenciaga-style puffer jacket would cause such a stir? Sorry to burst your bubble – this image is actually fake. The viral Pope image was created using AI Image generator Midjourney, which usually generates four images in response to each prompt. Here to chat about viral AI images – and how you can spot fakes – is Account Executive, Beth.
Now the Pope having drip isn’t something we’d expect to see, so where did it come from? The image was originally posted to the Midjourney subreddit by user u/trippy_art_special, which then eventually made its way onto Twitter and other social media platforms, quickly becoming a meme. Hello, Pope Daddy.
Don’t be alarmed if you were fooled. A Twitter poll conducted by Youtuber Hank Green showed that out of 244,370 respondents, a massive 48.1% of people thought that the image was real. There’s no denying that upon first inspection the image looks real and if you were scrolling through quickly enough, you probably wouldn’t question it. But the hands give it away. You can see that there’s the sort-of hand kinda grasping at the coffee cup, the glasses lens creating its own shadow and the crucifix that’s not sitting at the right angle.
If you’re unsure, here are tips to help you verify images online:
- Using tools such as Google’s reverse image search to find the origin of the image. Check to see if the image has been manipulated or repurposed.
- Check multiple sources and the credibility of the source with the information laid out.
The Pope hasn’t been the only ‘celebrity’ that’s had AI images gone viral recently. There have been fake pictures of Elon Musk holding hands with AOC, Donald Trump being arrested and French President Emmanual Macron running through clouds of tear gas. AI-generated images are often created without consent and used to spread malicious information. Take the fake Trump photos for example – generated by prompts provided by Elliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat (an investigative journalism group) – which falsely depicted his arrest. But accompanied with the recent headlines around Trump’s anticipated arrest, has led a number of social media users to believe they’re real.
AI-generated images pose new ethical issues, like lack of consent. Platforms such as Midjourney and Bing Creator have their own rules to what is and isn’t allowed. On top of this, social media platforms have struggled for years to deal with misinformation, and now deepfakes and AI-generated images have been added into the mix.
Whilst fake imagery is nothing new, AI generator capabilities are ramping up, and the programs are getting better and better with time. Though people are becoming less fooled by fake photos, there’s no denying that technology has advanced rapidly and soon we may get to the point where AI-generated and real images are impossible to tell apart.
But for now, if you see an image of the Pope kitted out head-to-toe in a Gucci tracksuit on Twitter, don’t be so quick to believe and retweet.