From The Dispatch
Viral Images of Girl and Puppy in Hurricane Recovery Are AI-Generated
After Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc across parts of six southeastern U.S. states last week, images of the multistate catastrophe—and the rescue and recovery operations that have followed—rapidly spread across the internet.
However, the widespread availability and access to digital photo creation—using AI technology to create images—has called the authenticity of some viral images into question.
Two viral photos—both featuring a worried-looking young girl wearing a life jacket and holding a puppy aboard a rescue boat—are made with AI and are not authentic depictions of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene...
Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley and member of the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Lab, said the photo showed a “very strong indication” of AI-generation.
“You can see that the reflector on the vest is different as typically happens with generative AI, which struggles to keep details consistent across images,” Farid, whose research specializes in digital image analysis, told The Dispatch Fact Check. “Shown on the right is the result of a simple geometric analysis that I performed on this second image. The slatted floor on the bottom of the boat is geometrically inconsistent with the expected perspective geometry of a natural image...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
