I work at a newspaper as both a writer and photographer. I deal with images all day.
Photo manipulation has been around as long as the medium itself. And throughout the decades, people have worried about the veracity of images. When PhotoShop became popular, some decried it as the end of truthful photography. And now here’s AI, making things up entirely.
So, as a professional, am I worried? Not really. Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to ‘trust and verify when possible’. We generally receive our images from people who are wholly reliable. They have no reason to deceive us and know that burning that bridge will hurt their organisation and career. It’s not worth it.
If someone was to send us an image that’s ‘too interesting’, we’d obviously try to verify it through other sources. If a bunch of people photographed that same incident from different angles, clearly it’s real. If we can’t verify it, well, we either trust the source and run it, or we don’t.
Personally I think this kind of response shows how not ready we are, because it is grounded in the antiquated assumption that it is just more of the same old instead of a complete revolution in both the quality and quantity of fakery going to happen.
Unfortunately, newspapers and news sources like it that verify information reasonably well aren’t where most people get their info from anymore, and IMO, are unlikely to be around in a decade. It’s become pretty easy to get known misinformation widely distributed and refuting it does virtually nothing to change popular opinion on these stories anymore. This is only going to get worse with tools like this.
Yeah photo editing software, and AI, can be used to create images from different points of view, mimicking different styles, and qualities, of different equipment, and make adjustments for continuity from perspective, to perspective. Unless we have way for something, like AI, to be able to identify fabricated images, using some sort of encoding fingerprint, or something, it won’t be forever until they are completely indiscernible from the genuine article. You would have to be able to prove a negative, that the person who claims to have taken the photo could not have, in order to do so. This, as we know, is far more difficult than current discretionary methods.
The point I’m making isn’t really about the ability to fake specific angles or the tech side of it. It’s about levels of trust and independent sources.
It’s certainly possible for people to put up some fake accounts and tweet some fake images of seperate angles. But I’m not trusting random accounts on Twitter for that. We look at sources like AP, Reuters, AFP… if they all have the same news images from different angles, it’s trustworthy enough for me. On a smaller scale, we look at people and sources we trust and have vetted personally. People with longstanding relationships. It really does boil down to a ‘circle of trust’: if I don’t know a particular photographer, I’ll talk to someone who can vouch for them based on past experiences.
And if all else fails and it’s just too juicy not to run? We’d slap a big 'ole ‘this image has not been verified’ on it. Which we’ve never had to do so far, because we’re careful with our sources.
Sorry, but if traditional news media loses much more ground to “alternative fact” land, and other reasons for decline vs the new media, I have zero faith they won’t just give in and go with it. I mean, if they are gonna fail anyway, why not at least see if they can get themselves a slice of that pie.
I work at a newspaper as both a writer and photographer. I deal with images all day.
Photo manipulation has been around as long as the medium itself. And throughout the decades, people have worried about the veracity of images. When PhotoShop became popular, some decried it as the end of truthful photography. And now here’s AI, making things up entirely.
So, as a professional, am I worried? Not really. Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to ‘trust and verify when possible’. We generally receive our images from people who are wholly reliable. They have no reason to deceive us and know that burning that bridge will hurt their organisation and career. It’s not worth it.
If someone was to send us an image that’s ‘too interesting’, we’d obviously try to verify it through other sources. If a bunch of people photographed that same incident from different angles, clearly it’s real. If we can’t verify it, well, we either trust the source and run it, or we don’t.
Personally I think this kind of response shows how not ready we are, because it is grounded in the antiquated assumption that it is just more of the same old instead of a complete revolution in both the quality and quantity of fakery going to happen.
Unfortunately, newspapers and news sources like it that verify information reasonably well aren’t where most people get their info from anymore, and IMO, are unlikely to be around in a decade. It’s become pretty easy to get known misinformation widely distributed and refuting it does virtually nothing to change popular opinion on these stories anymore. This is only going to get worse with tools like this.
I don’t think you can assume this anymore.
Yeah photo editing software, and AI, can be used to create images from different points of view, mimicking different styles, and qualities, of different equipment, and make adjustments for continuity from perspective, to perspective. Unless we have way for something, like AI, to be able to identify fabricated images, using some sort of encoding fingerprint, or something, it won’t be forever until they are completely indiscernible from the genuine article. You would have to be able to prove a negative, that the person who claims to have taken the photo could not have, in order to do so. This, as we know, is far more difficult than current discretionary methods.
The point I’m making isn’t really about the ability to fake specific angles or the tech side of it. It’s about levels of trust and independent sources.
It’s certainly possible for people to put up some fake accounts and tweet some fake images of seperate angles. But I’m not trusting random accounts on Twitter for that. We look at sources like AP, Reuters, AFP… if they all have the same news images from different angles, it’s trustworthy enough for me. On a smaller scale, we look at people and sources we trust and have vetted personally. People with longstanding relationships. It really does boil down to a ‘circle of trust’: if I don’t know a particular photographer, I’ll talk to someone who can vouch for them based on past experiences.
And if all else fails and it’s just too juicy not to run? We’d slap a big 'ole ‘this image has not been verified’ on it. Which we’ve never had to do so far, because we’re careful with our sources.
Sorry, but if traditional news media loses much more ground to “alternative fact” land, and other reasons for decline vs the new media, I have zero faith they won’t just give in and go with it. I mean, if they are gonna fail anyway, why not at least see if they can get themselves a slice of that pie.