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This morning I was reading about the devastating earthquakes in Colombia and Venezuela and their potential impacts on California, where I live.
The report included an image of a big city street in California with dozens of downed buildings and rubble in the streets.
It was a striking image, but something was off.
It wasn’t the realism of the image, or any obvious telltale signs that screamed fake.
It was the novelty of the image that made me suspicious.
It looked very different from all the news pictures I’d seen from previous California earthquakes. I figured if someone had captured such an arresting image during the Loma Prieta or Northridge quakes, it would have been widely disseminated, and I’d likely have seen it.
And lo and behold, the caption and a watermark revealed its source: Midjourney, the AI image generator.
OK, big deal! I spotted a fake AI image in the wild — whoop-de-doo!
But the image was in a very big online publication with a huge global audience. Yes, it’s a tabloid, but it still struck me as a line that’s not to be crossed. It’s the first time I’ve seen photorealistic AI imagery used in a news post, and it’d be easy to miss its origin if you didn’t scrutinize the caption and watermark.
Obviously, AI fakery is nothing new, but for sure it’s a growing problem. Anthropic just added sophisticated watermarks to Claude-generated text, and Apple adds AI-identifying metadata to Image Playground pics. There are myriad other examples.
And now Apple is reportedly going a step further with a new system in iOS that identifies iPhone images as real.
What’s surprising is how complex and convoluted the new system sounds. Who knew how much effort is needed to prove something is real these days?
Also in today’s newsletter:
Oooooh: Apple’s all-glass 20th anniversary iPhone sounds pretty sexy!
Huh. Among the changes in the latest iOS beta is code that appears to confirm the name of the upcoming folding iPhone. But perhaps it’s misdirection? A new rumor suggests Apple will call it the iPhone Duo.
🔥 DEAL OF THE DAY: This beefy battery pack comes with something I’ve not seen before: a 3-in-1 charging cable that can simultaneously juice Lightning, USB-C and mini-USB. Plus it’s only $32 (35% off). #affiliate
Folding travel chargers really are clever, and this new one from Mophie can fast-charge your iPhone. But there’s a small catch. See our hands-on review.
We got a lot of votes and comments on yesterday’s poll about skipping the next iPhone upgrade if prices go up by hundreds of dollars. Almost everyone said they wouldn’t upgrade — see below. I’m not sure I believe the results, though: You say that now!
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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Today’s poll
What name do you like for the folding iPhone?
Results from yesterday’s poll
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