In a breathtaking example of poor judgement, someone at Amnesty International decided to use AI-generated photorealistic images to depict police brutality in Colombia.
The images, which have since been deleted, were created to mark the two-year anniversary of the 2021 protests in the country.
Initially, Amnesty defended the AI-generated images, stating that they served to protect the identities of individuals present at the protests, many of whom covered their faces due to fear of repression and stigmatisation.
It’s perhaps a nice concept, but it misses the point that the images are photorealistic in style (if not very good) and that photorealistic style, particularly from an organisation like Amnesty International, is associated with truth. If the images had been rendered in an art style, I doubt there would be an outcry.
The AI-generated images contained several noticeable errors, such as warped faces, incorrect police uniforms, and even the wrong arrangement of colours in the Colombian flag. Perhaps not the approach you’d want to take when trying to build trust.
The images each had a small note on the bottom left corner saying: “Illustrations produced by artificial intelligence.”, again a nice concept, but it still leaves you with a disingenuous taste in our mouth.