Photos are no longer a 'guarantee of truth' in the age of AI

After the invention of the camera, photos recorded everything around them at the moment of pressing the button, so they were always considered reliable evidence. Sometimes, people even put so much faith in photography that most people believed in the irrationality of the photo and ignored its authenticity, such as the photo of a spirit from the Victorian era (late 19th century, early 20th century) or the Loch Ness monster.

The authenticity of images is fading in the digital age. With the advent of editing software, staged scenes with effects, manipulated photos are easily spread with false information but difficult to identify because it requires specialized knowledge and specialized analysis tools.

Normally, editing software requires a knowledgeable person to use, but in recent years, with the emergence of AI, anyone can create fake photos with the same authenticity as "Photoshop experts" in just a few minutes.

The Verge editor Sarah Jeong said it took her just 10 seconds to create a fake photo using the Reimagine tool in the Magic Editor software on the Google Pixel 9.

Before AI, media workers like Sarah Jeong had to carefully consider every detail, the origin of the photo, check the context, or any editing. But now, anyone can create fake photos and fake information easily, making that job much more difficult.

Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more popular in smartphones, not only high-end models but also mid-range and low-end models. The ease with which users can access AI smartphones has caused concerns to increase rapidly.

The current measures to combat AI-generated fakes on social media are sketchy. Companies have only introduced standards to 'watermark' AI-generated products, with watermarks or very small annotations accompanying posts. But all of these are easily removed with other tools.

Jessica Tanner

Update 31 August 2024