Sometimes, journalists worry about the wrong thing.
All of these stories on artificial intelligence and how difficult it is to tell if a photograph is genuine, or has been constructed by AI. They offer tips to help sort out the real from the fake.
The assumption, never challenged, being that people want to differentiate what exists in reality from what doesn’t. That they care. Lately, I’m not so sure. I’m starting to worry that caring about whether something is real has become a journalistic quibble.
On July 4, I was doing what any good, patriotic America does on a gorgeous Independence Day — sitting in my office, scrolling Twitter — when New York wit and political firebrand Molly Jong-Fast shared a photo of a trio of ice cream pints in “Gefilte Fish,” “Matzo Ball” and “Black & White Cookie” flavors.
“Introducing,” the headline read, “ICE CREAM WITH A LICK OF CHUTZPAH.”
My immediate response was to ask: “Is this real?” There are a variety of tests to determine this. The first is the gut test, which said: “Noooooo, can’t be.” Manischewitz is not marketing ice cream in these flavors.
But instinct can fail you in an era when Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are in negotiations for their cage fight match, perhaps at the Colosseum in Rome. I didn’t initially think that was real either.
Second, examine the evidence. I looked closer at the photo. Very nicely done. Professional. No muddy Dall-E pastiche this. These are cartons you’d see in a grocery freezer case.
Third, consider the source. The tweet came from @ManischewitzCo. On Twitter since 2009.
Could be some realistic-looking parody account? I began to scroll down, looking at what they’ve been sending. offerings, and quickly stumbled over Hash Brownie macaroons. That clinched it: these weren’t real. If they sold Hash Brownie macaroons, I’d have heard of it.
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Gefilte fish flavored ice cream would be revoltingly awful!
ReplyDeleteHey its not April Fools day.
ReplyDeleteSo what's the hubub, Bub? it's a bunch of marketing geeks raised on Spiegelman''s "Wacky Packages" thinking they can make matzoh relevant. Big deal, they're funny, and I for one was never fooled (though black and white cookie would be awesome). Yer bud at the NYT seems a bit humorless.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, one of the latest turns on the Highway to the Hellscape of Twitter is that Elon decided to disallow people from perusing it if they're not signed up. So, I'm unable to get a feel for the reaction to these tweets among the twitterati beyond this informative column.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I gotta say I'm a little surprised at your and Ms. Jong-Fast's reactions. Personally, I think they're funny. While I share your concern about people being easily duped when it comes to political parodies and matters of more significance than imaginary ice cream flavors, this seems cheeky and harmless to me.
I'd also point out that the "hash brownie macaroons" tweet was posted on April 20. Since 4/20 "refers to cannabis-oriented celebrations that take place annually on April 20" (Wikipedia), that seems in the same spirit as an April Fool's joke to me.
Perhaps if this stuff had been cooked up back in the day by Ernie Bushmiller, you'd have found it more entertaining! ; )
On second appraisal, this is a fun column.
ReplyDelete