We’ve previously looked at general purpose AI, and mentioned how there are some specific, or narrow focus AIs out there as well. These are designed to do a specific task, such as drive a car, detect intruders on a camera system, etc.
Today we’re going to look at those that work with images specifically. While they come in a lot of different formats, we’re going to look at three specific types, and how we can think about these, and the use of these applications.
Now with a lot of AI image generation, and manipulation, there are actually two parts of the application. First, is the ability to read in an existing image. It might be the photo you are editing, or a series of photos from which it “learns”. It has to determine what is in the photo, is it a forest, a group of people, or maybe both. Where is the main subject, and other such information. A bad example would be recently my wife and I were on a MS Teams meeting. Because we were sharing a computer screen, but not at the same distance to the computer’s camera, it saw me as the primary subject (because I was closer) and filled in the background where I wife was.
The second thing these tools have to do, is then create and/or manipulate the image with the new information. It does that, based upon inputs provided to it, as well as using the source material. Now you may have an image with multiple generated components, and it has to be smart enough to handle that as well.
Image Filters
The first is image filters. These are very popular and you can find them on your camera apps, as well as social media apps like Instagram, TikTok, and more.
Most of these work by looking at your image, and then modifying it in some way. Early examples might add dog ears, a hat, etc to your head. While this seems simple, it has to see your face, recognize its orientation, and then size an overlay on top of the correct position. While it seems simple, think about all the different ways faces can look. Not only shape, color, etc but also things like, are they wearing glasses, a hat, a necktie, etc.
Now, if we go back even further, you would have had to use some sort of image editing software like Photoshop, Gimp, etc. to edit an image. A person would have had to make those changes by hand. This would be a relatively slow and tedious process for most people. The filter, built right into your phone app, makes it so much easier.
You might wonder what could possibly be right or wrong with an image filter. Well, we’ve gone from funny add-ons to beauty filters, which can cause all types of potential issues, such as:
- Unrealistic standards
- Mental health impact
- Distorted self-perception
- Increased pressure to look perfect
- Reinforcement of biases
- and more… Picture Perfect: The Hidden Consequences Of AI Beauty Filters (forbes.com)
- From ‘Instagram Face’ To ‘Snapchat Dysmorphia’: How Beauty Filters Are Changing The Way We See Ourselves (forbes.com)
Think about some of the people you know who use these beauty filters. Sure it might have started to cover a daily blemish, but now their photos look nothing like them. How does that make them feel when they look in the mirror? We Know Beauty Filters Are Bad For Us, But Is Anything Changing? (byrdie.com)
It is said that people used to compare themselves to celebrities. Now it is with themselves… or a more perfect version of themselves.
Of course, there are tons of image filters, including those to make us look young (that couldn’t lead to any problems, right?) or old. And there are definite uses for these tools. Maybe I need to age a missing person’s photo to try to see what they look like now. But at what point is it “too much”? Should we limit their use somehow?
Does it matter if it’s on Zoom with their enhance image, or TikTok? What about someone who was born with a disfigurement, or has scars from an accident? On one hand, we should want to accept them for the person they are. On the other, they are dealing with a daily reminder of a trauma. In the recent movie The Whale, Brendan Fraser plays an overweight professor, who turns off his camera while all of his students have theirs on. (The opposite of what it’s actually like to teach on Zoom I should point out.) This is because he’s embarrassed by his weight, and doesn’t want others to see him, fearing rejection.
At some point we help people with these types of filters. At some point, we contribute to their ongoing pain. How do we delineate that position? And is that point different for different people? Can we help someone who doesn’t know they need help?
Image Generation
Image generation is of special interest to me because of my own background. I used to work as a 3D animator, creating things out of nothing. Over the years, computer generated imagery has gotten better, larger, more realistic, and even easier. The first movie with Computer Graphic Images was Tron in 1982. Eleven years later, in 1993, we got the first Jurassic Park movie (or as I like to refer to it… the good one). The images were so realistic, it caused some people to wonder if they weren’t dinosaurs, would you believe the images were CGI?
This led to a simple, but serious, question. If this is so realistic, can we trust images and videos in things like the news and courts? In fact, I remember in the early to mid-nineties someone posing that question in an article. And now we have experts that look at images trying to determine if they are real or not during a trial… but not always.
We’ve seen AI being used to up sample low quality images to 4k. Search on YouTube for upscaled videos and you see many, many examples.
However, now with some AI tools, we can generate images using a prompt. These are trained from other images (remember our discussion on is it ethical to train AI systems from other sources, but how does that different from going to an art school, or training under a master as an apprentice?)
AI Image Generators
There are various AI Image generators out there, with different skills. Not only that, they are improving vastly over the last few versions.
We start with some from OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT also) Dalle 2, but there are others such as Midjourney, Pixlr, Craiyon, and more. Within Photoshop’s latest beta, they have several AI tools, such as generative fill, which guesses what an image will look like if you expand the canvas area (Photoshop’s New AI Tool Lets You Expand Images With New Scenery (msn.com) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp6K3qpVFO0 ) and allows you to change content of the image, with the use of text (Use Generative Fill to Change Clothes and Accessories in Photoshop (beta) | Tutorial | Adobe – YouTube). You can also, very easily remove items from a photo (like an ex).
Adobe’s new Firefly just went public. This means that with tools like these, now you don’t have to be a skilled user to create something that might trick the average person. You just have to know how to use the tool, which is designed so anyone can use it.
Here is a great example showing different images that MidJourney has created using the same prompt as each new version has come out. 🔥Midjourney Versions Comparison!🔥 : r/midjourney (reddit.com) as well as some different types of results from popular tools: AI Image Generators Compared Side-By-Side Reveals Stark Differences | PetaPixel
This is cool for things like removing an ex from a photo, or seeing what you’d look like in a suit. But what about other nefarious uses? (https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/europe/spain-deepfake-images-investigation-scli-intl/index.html) Could you add a person to a photo that wasn’t there? Could someone use this for blackmail or to hurt someone’s reputation?
Since we have a presidential election coming up; could you imagine putting a candidate, as their younger self, into a photo with people you might not want to be associated with (criminals, racist, rioters, etc)? Even if it comes out as fake, most people remember the original, and forget the retraction of a story.
We also unfortunately live in a world where people are blackmailed over explicit photos. (Sextortion: How Online Predators Blackmail Victims for Nude Photos and Money | Allure and ‘Sextortion:’ More teens tricked, blackmailed with sexually explicit pictures (yahoo.com)) This might make it much easier to generate fake photos and extorting people with them. Unfortunately, this has led to the suicide of various individuals, often teenagers. (Upstate NY teen dies by suicide after being blackmailed over photos (nypost.com))
The AI political campaign is here | CNN Politics AI to generate images for a campaign ad.
Deepfake
Deepfakes take image generation to the next level. They are an interesting tool in that instead of a still image, it can often be used with audio and video. The actual definition is: a video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information: – Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data (oup.com)
Now there are a large number of potential uses for something like this. For example, think of a movie star who passed away. The Matrix Reloaded (the second movie) could have benefited from this. Between the first and second movie, one of the actresses passed away, and had to be recast.A deep fake, where there was a stand in, could have fixed the continuity issue.
Likewise, several movies have had the star pass away while they were filming the movie. Do you cancel the movie? Recast in the middle? Do a rewrite to work around it? (All of those have been done.) https://movieweb.com/actors-who-died-while-filming-their-last-movies/#luke-perry—once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-2018 Heath Ledger, Bruce and Brandon Lee (father and son but in different movies at different times), Philip Seymour Hoffman, and John Candy all passed while they were filming their (final) movies.
Or maybe you want to see more movies with James Dean, who passed away at a young age, or a child actor, who was cute as a kid, but puberty was rough on them. (Think Macaulay Culkin who lost is marketability once he hit puberty or Shirley Temple, who seemingly worked non-stop to maximize the revenue of a cute little girl.) Their careers could be safely extended.
We’ve already seen digital doubles being used for risky stunts, but what about getting an actor to do something they don’t want to do – such as a nude scene? Actors often have contracts which may prohibit them doing different things because of their image (think smoking, nude scenes, or where “The Rock” isn’t allowed to lose a major fight scene in any movie). Now with this technology, “they” may not film that scene, but “they” are in a scene which would have been prohibited.
They can even be used for “fun” such as Fake Cruise.
However, there are also various nefarious potentials. Everything from faking a kidnapping/ransom (AI scam calls: This mom believes fake kidnappers cloned her daughter’s voice | CNN) to manipulating what a political candidate says/believes. Given the divisiveness of our current political climate, it wouldn’t take much to believe what makes something worse, and spread misinformation.
You could also potentially have business implications. Imagine a Fake CEO releasing “news” which manipulates the stock price of a company, even if only for a few hours? Or a Fake General giving orders to move troops so an enemy could move in unopposed? That list of potential issues could go on and on.
There are also cases of people creating fake porno’s of people. This could be someone they know, as I’m sure it’s happening already, creating an extortion racket, either through blackmail, shaming, or both. People Are Using AI to Create Fake Porn of Their Friends and Classmates (vice.com) From an ethics perspective, this has all types of concerns about privacy, as well.
If you listen to the interview with Fake Tom Cruise, you hear the actor stating that he thinks the technology is neutral. It’s a matter of what will you and other people do with it, and that the good will outweigh the bad. But what if the bad happens to you? Does the good still outweigh the bad? Discuss.
AI Music
Music is another area in which AI is producing interesting results. Whether it is from creating new content (music is math therefore easy to create) or creating parodies so instead of Weird Al, we can have Weird AI.
Source : There I Ruined it.
Image Filters, Image Generation, and Deep Fakes was originally found on Access 2 Learn
