Tiffany Hsu and Steven Lee Myers
Seeing has not been believing for a very long time. Photos have been faked and manipulated for nearly as long as photography has existed.
Now, not even reality is required for photographs to look authentic — just artificial intelligence responding to a prompt. Even experts sometimes struggle to tell if one is real or not. Can you?
The rapid advent of artificial intelligence has set off alarms that the technology used to trick people is advancing far faster than the technology that can identify the tricks. Tech companies, researchers, photo agencies and news organizations are scrambling to catch up, trying to establish standards for content provenance and ownership.
The advancements are already fueling disinformation and being used to stoke political divisions. Authoritarian governments have created seemingly realistic news broadcasters to advance their political goals. Last month, some people fell for images showing Pope Francis donning a puffy Balenciaga jacket and an earthquake devastating the Pacific Northwest, even though neither of those events had occurred. The images had been created using Midjourney, a popular image generator.
On Tuesday, as former President Donald J. Trump turned himself in at the Manhattan district attorney’s office to face criminal charges, images generated by artificial intelligence appeared on Reddit showing the actor Bill Murray as president in the White House. Another image showing Mr. Trump marching in front of a large crowd with American flags in the background was quickly reshared on Twitter without the disclosure that had accompanied the original post, noting it was not actually a photograph.
Experts fear the technology could hasten an erosion of trust in media, in government and in society. If any image can be manufactured — and manipulated — how can we believe anything we see?
“The tools are going to get better, they’re going to get cheaper, and there will come a day when nothing you see on the internet can be believed,” said Wasim Khaled, chief executive of Blackbird.AI, a company that helps clients fight disinformation.
Artificial intelligence allows virtually anyone to create complex artworks, like those now on exhibit at the Gagosian art gallery in New York, or lifelike images that blur the line between what is real and what is fiction. Plug in a text description, and the technology can produce a related image — no special skills required.
No comments:
Post a Comment