big oof.

We can conclude: that photo isn’t AI-generated. You can’t get an AI system to generate photos of an existing location; it’s just not possible given the current state of the art.

the author of this substack is woefully misinformed about the state of technology 🤦

it has, in fact, been possible for several years already for anyone to quickly generate convincing images (not to mention videos) of fictional scenes in real locations with very little effort.

The photograph—which appeared on the Associated Press feed, I think—was simply taken from a higher vantage point.

Wow, it keeps getting worse. They’re going full CSI on this photo, drawing a circle around a building on google street view where they think the photographer might have been, but they aren’t even going to bother to try to confirm their vague memory of having seen AP publishing it? wtf?

Fwiw, I also thought the image looked a little neural network-y (something about the slightly less-straight-than-they-used-to-be lines of some of the vehicles) so i spent a few seconds doing a reverse image search and found this snopes page from which i am convinced that that particular pileup of cars really did happen as it was also photographed by multiple other people.

And it’s gonna get worse, because it’s a very lucrative industry AND it’s highly effective for propaganda.

Maybe we could stop giving a platform to the crazies that foster those stories. Both of them; the idiots that see ai artefacts everywhere but also the fear mongers of the sort of the blog here. It reminds me of « be afraid of rpgs » in the 80ies and then « videos games are going to turn teens in murderers » in the 90ies… every new tech has curves for their maturity, cultural & societal fit. We just so happen to be at the shitty times for ai. But eventually the fad will go away, most crazies will move to something else and attention whores will also find a new niche.