AI manipulation and the liar’s dividend
It was supposed to be just another royal social media post celebrating Mother’s Day in the UK. But that heavily edited photo of the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, and her kids went on to fuel all kinds of conspiracy theories about Kate Middleton’s health and where she’s been.
This election season, that royal mishap served as a reminder that seeing is not always believing. Especially on the internet.
Images manipulated — whether by artificial inteligence or with tools like Photoshop — are everywhere, meaning we have to scrutinize user-generated content no matter how “official” the source.
Marketplace’s Lily Jamali and Kimberly Adams discussed why some fake images circulating of President Biden and former President Trump ahead of Election Day can be so problematic.
This conversation was part of Marketplace Tech’s limited series “Decoding Democracy.” You can watch the full episode here or on our YouTube channel.
More on everything we talked about
Everything ‘wrong’ with Kate Middleton’s Mother’s Day photo as princess admits it was edited – The Independent
Ron DeSantis ad uses AI-generated photos of Trump, Fauci – AFP
Image of Biden planning military action in fatigues is fake – AFP
Trump supporters target black voters with faked AI images – BBC
Fakebusters strike back: How to spot deep fakes, the manipulated videos that are the newest form of “fake news” to hit the internet – Sage Journals
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