this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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TL;DR: The new Reimage feature on the Google Pixel 9 phones is really good at AI manipulation, while being very easy to use. This is bad.
Some serious old-man-yelling-at-cloud energy
It'll sink in for you when photographic evidence is no longer admissible in court
Photoshop has existed for a bit now. So incredibly shocking it was only going to get better and easier to do, move along with the times oldtimer.
Photoshop requires time and talent to make a believable image.
This requires neither.
But it has been possible, for more than a decade
You said "but" like it invalidated what I said, instead of being a true statement and a non sequitur.
You aren't wrong, and I don't think that changes what I said either.
Lmao, "but" means your statement can be true and irrelevant at the same time. From the day photoshop could fool people lawyers have been trying to mark any image as faked, misplaced or out of context.
When you just now realise it's an issue, that's your problem. People can't stop these tools from existing, so like, go yell at a cloud or something.
You are misunderstanding me.
I am not disagreeing with you, but it's intellectually dishonest to not acknowledge the context of the reality we live in: it used to require genuine talent and skill to use a paid tool to fake images, and now is as easy as entering text on your phone in a free app just describing what you want to see.
This is an exponential escalation of existing problems and technologies.
I never said I was just now worried about fake images. To say it myself: I'm worried about the now non-existent barrier that bad actors no longer need to clear to do whatever they want to do here.
Let me be clear so you don't misunderstand me. When it comes down to prove an image is genuine you haven't been able to say "look at this picture, it's real for sure" for almost 30 years. When you want to use a picture to prove something you have to provide much more details about where/how/when/why it was taken, access to those tools won't change the fact a picture in a vacuum has no meaning.
Like I said, old-man-yelling-at-cloud energy.
I am no longer interested in continuing a conversation with you, as you've convinced me that you're not interested in engaging with what I am saying. Thank you for your time and perspective to this point.
As an "outside observer", I think maybe you're not seeing (what I believe is) the other guys viewpoint: What you are bringing up (photoshop has been possible already) is a core part of what he said from the start, and his point builds on top of that. So obviously he already knows it, and arguing about it disregards that his line of argumentation builds upon the basis we all agreed upon to be true until you brought it up as ... contrarian? To his point. doesn't seem like "old man yells at cloud" energy, more like "Uhm, achtually"
Well yeah, I'm not concerned with its ease of use nowadays. I'm more concerned with the computer forensics experts not being able to detect a fake for which Photoshop has always been detectable.
As the cat and mouse game continues, we ask ourselves, is water still wet?
Just wait, image manipulation will happen at image creation and there will be no "original". Proving an image is unmanipulated will be a landmark legal precedent and set the standard for being able to introduce photographic evidence. It is already a problem for audio recordings and will be eventually for video.
I really don't have much knowledge on it but it sound like it's would be an actual good application of blockchain.
Couldn't a blockchain be used to certify that pictures are original and have not been tampered with ?
On the other hand if it was possible I'm certain someone either have already started it, it is the prefect investor magnet "Using blockchain to counter AI"
How would that work?
I am being serious, I am an IT and can't see how that would work in any realistic way.
And even if we had a working system to track all changes made to a photo, it would only work if the author submitted the original image before any change haf been made, but how would you verify that the original copy of a photo submitted to the system has not been tempered with?
Sure, you could be required to submit the raw file from the camera, but it is only a matter of time untill AI can perfectly simulate an optical sensor to take a simulated raw of a simulated scene.
Nope, we simply have to fall back on building trust with photo journalists, and trust digital signatures to tell us when we are seeing a photograph modified outsided of the journalist's agency.
Yep, I think we pictures are becoming a valuable as text and it is fine, we just need to get used to it.
Before photography became mainstream the only source of information was written, it is extremely simple to make a fake story so people had to rely on trusted sources. Then for a short period of history photography became a (kinda) reliable sources of information by itself and this trust system lost its importance.
In most cases seeing a photo means that we were seeing a true reflection of what happened, especially if we were song multiple photos of the same event.
Now we are arriving at the end of this period, we cannot trust a photo by itself anymore, tampering a photo is becoming as easy as writing a fake story. This is a great opportunity for journalists I believe.
There has never not been a time when photography was not manipulated in some way, be it as simple as picking a subject and framing it in a specific way can completely change the story.
I really enjoy photography as a hobby, however I find it a bit embarrasing and intrusive to take photos of other people, so my photos tend to look empty of people.
I will allways frame a picture to have no or as a very few people in it as possible.
In general I don't edit my photos on the computer, I just let them speak for themselves, even if that story is a half truth.
We have never been able to trust photographs completely, though you make a good point about truth in numbers, that won't go way just because of AI.
The big issue now is how easiy it is to make a completely believably faked photo out of an existing photo, we have been able to do this for decades, but is has been way, way harder to do.
As for the blockchain making photos valuable, we tried that, NFTs as a concept is dumb and has failed, I don't believe that NFTs will be the future of ownership.