We live in a world where the lines between fantasy and reality are entirely blurred. No longer can we trust the media – or our eyes. With new artificial intelligence technologies emerging and becoming readily available, fake news and digitally enhanced images – and videos – are spreading like wildfire. You may have seen a video of Mark Zuckerberg bragging about having “total control of billions of people’s stolen data” or, more recently, images of Trump being arrested amidst his trial in New York. And as convincing as they may have appeared, both were fake.
Flooding our social media platforms, this hyper-realistic visual content is easy to accept – perhaps a sign of the absurdity of the world in which we live. As we mindlessly scroll through Instagram, these images enter our subconscious without us really realising. Let’s be honest, people aren’t going onto social media to critically examine and interrogate what they see – it’s an escape, a pastime, something to do when you’re bored. The subconscious and ephemeral act of experiencing social media makes it the perfect place to post fake images and thus, fake news.
Image Screenshot of Instagram / Xavier Art
It was only last week that I myself was caught off guard by the power of image-generating AI technology, specifically Midjourney. The image that fooled me was of Pope Francis wearing a white, floor-length Moncler puffer jacket – which got 30 million views in its first week of circulation. I remember thinking to myself, “Well, this is just the world we live in! The Pope wearing Moncler”, before scrolling onto the next image: an influencer’s mirror selfie. Truthfully, it wouldn’t be the first time that something as absurd as the Pope wearing Moncler has happened (for context: I’m from the UK, and, after witnessing countless baffling political affairs, I’m not easily shocked). Funnily enough, it’s the images of the influencers that engage me critically. I’m zooming in, checking to see if they’ve photoshopped their figure or if they are indeed that “perfect” (which usually happens when I’ve got a bag of crisps in hand, feeling awfully ashamed of myself). Yet, I didn’t bat an eyelid when I saw the Pope decked out in Moncler. Of course, thinking back, that’s a ridiculous thought to have about a highly respected religious figure. But, that’s social media for you!
This calls into question how far this technology will go in revealing false realities. More importantly, what is the future of trust in a world dominated by the unreal?
Image Screenshot of Twitter / Eliot Higgins
Midjourney is an artificial intelligence program that labels itself as “an independent research lab exploring new mediums of thought and expanding the imaginative powers of the human species”. Instead of opposing powers, Midjourney believes in the collaboration between humanity and machines. Their process, simply put, is to use an AI algorithm to generate images from natural language descriptions. It’s quite similar to Deepfake technology, which trains an AI algorithm (an encoder) to learn the face, mannerisms and voice of two people before using a second AI algorithm (a decoder) to compress the individual assets into one fake version. The controversial thing about this technology is that everybody is using it: from porn producers to government officials, to researchers and academics and, inevitably, the everyday person. As more people engage with it, this technology becomes more widespread in both its use and function. While it poses some productive advantages – with governments using it to disrupt extremist groups – it certainly racks up a number of harmful negatives: celebrities’ faces being used in porn videos, swaying public vote in an election, the Pope being presented as a high-fashion icon. A tool of endless creation or a weapon of harassment, destabilisation and violation?
While some use it to gain media attention, others use it for artistic means. Many artists are working in harmony with technology to produce one-of-a-kind artworks. American artist Ian Cheng uses it to create artworks that question the relationships between human and artificial intelligence; Lynn Hershman Leeson, the American multimedia artist and filmmaker, was already employing AI in art before it became a recognised medium; while writer and artist James Bridle examines dangerous feedback loops that are currently being generated in AI. Once again, art is the medium that questions, challenges and reframes what AI is and potentially can be – for better or worse.
As image-generating technology improves, our collective ability to distinguish truth from falsehood weakens. We can no longer trust the world as it is presented to us: it is synthetic, crafted by technology to fool us. What we can do is stay aware and take the time to evaluate an image before accepting its (un)reality. After all, this technology won’t be going away anytime soon.
As featured in SLEEK 77 – TRUST. Available in print and digital here.