Real or AI? The Tech Giants Racing to Stop the Spread of Fake Images

Bold Names

The Wall Street Journal

Technology

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

AI-generated or manipulated images are quickly becoming a lot more realistic. Soon, it may be impossible to tell the difference. That could create an opportunity for people to spread misinformation, and make it difficult to know what’s real. Tech companies like Adobe, Microsoft and Google, academics and government agencies are coming up with frameworks to verify images and, in some cases, show how they’ve been altered. But, these techniques may come with security risks of their own. WSJ’s Alex Ossola and Charlotte Gartenberg explore the new technology solutions that will identify fake images online and the potential issues getting them in front of users. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: [email protected] Further reading: AI-Created Images Are So Good Even AI Has Trouble Spotting Some Ask an AI Art Generator for Any Image. The Results Are Amazing—and Terrifying Paparazzi Photos Were the Scourge of Celebrities. Now, It’s AI AI, Art and the Future of Looking at a Painting Some of the Thorniest Questions About AI Will Be Answered in Court Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When you can't quite get the angle, take hands-free selfies with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5,
0:05.2	stand it up, step back, and your photos are also synced to your Chromebook,
0:09.9	ready to edit. The new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Chromebook, available on Vodafone.
0:18.4	Hi, Charlotte. Hi, Alex.
0:20.7	So I want you to take a look at what I'm showing you on my laptop screen here. Just describe what you see.
0:26.1	It's the Pope and the Puppy Code. Okay, so it's the Pope wearing a gorgeous, white,
0:33.0	very fashionable Puppy Code, and he seems to be strutting the streets of Vatican City with a cross
0:42.6	on a long chain, and he just looks really fly. He looks good, right? He looks really good.
0:48.7	Do you remember when you first saw this image? Oh, yeah, I do. I remember this whole thing.
0:54.1	There was a whole controversy around this. Yeah, so many people got fooled by this, and if we're
0:59.6	being honest here, I was one of them. And a new image of Pope Francis that is making the rounds
1:04.9	on social media has some people confused. This just appears to be Pope Francis wearing a white
1:10.3	puffer jacket with an iced out cross, posted to Reddit last week, shared on Twitter with the
1:15.2	caption, okay, the papal drip went viral. Honey Farid, a professor of computer science at the
1:21.7	University of California, Berkeley says this is a perfect case of a manipulated image taking the
1:27.2	world by storm. I mean, the Pope and the Puppy Code, right? I think we will look back on that image
1:33.6	as a very discreet moment in time where reporters realized they can no longer trust what they
1:38.9	see. Because a lot of reporters that I talked to in the intervening weeks after that were like,
1:43.7	I had no idea. Because it was just fantastical enough that you wanted it to be true,
1:49.4	and so realistic that it wasn't obvious that it was fake.
1:54.4	AI has been able to generate text and video for a while. But Farid says what's changing is that
2:00.6	this AI generated content is quickly becoming a lot more realistic.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.