
AI version of actress Sydney Sweeney generated by Stable Diffusion. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.
Toronto. As Photo/Camera collectors, we have been bombarded with fakes over the years. Easy manipulation of cheap items to create very expensive ones are the rage.
I once looked at ‘black’ Leicas that were so poorly painted they were obvious fakes – Leitz would never allow such shabby work to get out on the market (factory serial number lists indicated the models were authentic, but as chrome versions and as such worth far less).
In the search bar (upper right) of this page, type ‘fake’ (no quotes) and a number of earlier articles on the topic will pop up.
In the spring of 1994, editor Ev Roseborough in his ‘Editor’s Notebook’ column reported a Scientific American article on fakes.
Ev says, “Digital forgery can create evidence for events that never happened. This statement, accompanied by a much-less-than-convincing example in black and white, appears on the cover of Scientific American, February 1994.
“When is Seeing Believing? by William J. Mitchell, professor at M.I.T. and author of The Reconfigured Eye, M.I.T. Press 1992, voices this concern in the six pages.
“Much of the method described has been available for home computers with sufficient memory for a considerable time and advanced techniques have been employed here for several years.
“All of which is significant to photo-historians who are concerned with authenticity, to say nothing of our law courts. Manipulation is an awesome propaganda tool, as mentioned earlier in this journal, Volume 15 Number 3, 1989 [see Return of the Body Snatcher, p4].”
With the recent advent of so called ‘Artificial Intelligence’ [AI] programs on very powerful home computers, deepfakes have taken on a whole new meaning. The AI version of actress Sydney Sweeney plopped in a wheat field is an example of the distortions created today by AI programs. AI can be useful to handle repetitive, mundane tasks but can also be deceptive and sinister.
All of Ev’s column and more can be viewed in the appropriate pdf file on the members-only free DVD. Not a member? Joining is so easy – see the MEMBERSHIP sub-menu item above (form) and the article at right (PayPal).
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