As expected, AI image generators can be used to make misleading political photos

AI image generation has gotten extremely realistic… just in time for the US presidential election. This is one of the biggest concerns going into the voting season. A group of researchers has been testing some of the top image generators. They found that some of the top AI image generators can make misleading political images.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate conducted a study using image generators such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus, Microsoft’s Image Creator, and MidJourney to test their capacity to generate false political content. The center fed the generators prompts that could possibly produce misleading content.

One of the most popular image generators could be used to make misleading political images

Companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, MidJourney, and Stability AI signed an agreement to work together to block misleading political content. Thus, we expect the companies to do a ton of work to block political prompts. This seems to be working out as far as OpenAI is concerned. The researchers found that ChatGPT and Microsoft Image Creator (both powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E) were successful at blocking political prompts. This looks good on the company. However,

While this is the case, the researchers found that 41% of the time, the image generators were more susceptible to generating images depicting voter fraud than generating images of Donald Trump or Joe Biden. This points to a major issue that needs to be addressed.

MidJourney might have an issue

During the testing, the researchers found that MidJourney was the most likely candidate to produce misleading images. The researchers found that MidJourney produced misleading political images 65% of the time. According to the report, some of the images produced are already available to the public. This means that there are already false images making it around the internet.

While this is the case, MidJourney responded to the report. It said in a statement “updates related specifically to the upcoming U.S. election are coming soon.” So, hopefully, we’ll see an improvement in this.