Yanis Darras 13:49 pm, March 29, 2023

Emmanuel Macron garbage collector, Donald Trump arrested, Pope Francis in a down jacket... More and more celebrities are appearing on social networks in sometimes surprising situations. But in reality, these images are generated by artificial intelligence. To the point of disorienting Internet users.

Faced with the accumulation of garbage cans in the streets, has Emmanuel Macron finally decided to join the garbage collectors to clean up Paris? On social networks, the photo of the head of state, wearing an orange vest on his back and garbage bag in hand, circulates quickly. But as realistic as it is, this image is false. Like the latter, dozens of photographs of Emmanuel Macron in the streets, surrounded by garbage cans, or alongside the CRS, circulate on the internet.

The #ia#photo has made insane progress in a very short time, now #fake will be the norm on #reseaux, doubt what you see by default, plus the choice.#midjourney#midjourneyv5pic.twitter.com/dJoZXGrbRy

— Cryptonoo₿ from 100K to 0 (@Cryptonoobzzzz) March 19, 2023

Heads of State as a source of inspiration

If they seem so real, it's because these images were generated thanks to the artificial intelligence software, Midjourney. This site, originally created by a laboratory to invent digital works of art, was quickly hijacked by Internet users.

And Emmanuel Macron was not the only source of inspiration. The pope was also a victim of his success, users of the platform having fun representing him in a white down jacket. But if these scenes can amuse, the use of these artificial intelligence platforms to generate images at will, pause question.

Proof of this, the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, also had his moment of glory on the networks. The 45th president, who said he would be arrested by the police on March 21, was hijacked. On Twitter, the founder of an NGO specializing in fact-checking, posted images of Donald Trump trying to resist arrest. If the images are generated by software, their scope is real. More than 6 million people have seen these photos and many have wondered, as the fiction seems real.

Did they really stop Trump or are they images that date? Mdrrrrr pic.twitter.com/krm8hijPN1

— ALGERIAN ✌ ☪ (@so_mkb) March 21, 2023

Details betray the origin of the image

But small details still make it possible to realize that it is only a generated image, and not real. In the photos of Donald Trump's arrest, the inscriptions on the caps of the police officers are illegible. A characteristic that is also found on the images of Emmanuel Macron with the CRS.

Another detail: the skin of the generated people is smooth, as drawn. Finally, in some photos, details are overlooked. Thus, on clichés, the head of state to... six fingers on one of his hands. But, faced with the constant improvement of these sites, differentiating between true and false will take a new turn. What to bring fake news into a new era?