The Swagged-Out Pope: An AI-Generated Fake?

The internet recently went wild over a fake picture of the Pope wearing a puffy jacket. It's an AI-generated image that spread quickly on social media as a meme and then as a subject of debunking.

Despite the obvious signs of AI generation, the picture looked real, and that's what's interesting.

It reveals a lot about how AI fakes will be shared and spread in the coming months. Let's analyze why this particular image went viral.

First, there's the subject: the Pope himself. The pope is known for wearing stylish clothes, and images of him often go viral because of this. The association between the Bishop of Rome and Italian fashion is so strong that the Vatican has debunked rumors that the pope wears designer loafers.

This contrast between the Pope's spiritual authority and material swagger often makes the man a meme.

Second, the fact that the Pope is a celebrity makes unbelievable images of him inherently more believable. This is because of the style of image created by AI art generators, which is a specific look closely associated with Midjourney's software. Let's call this style hyperrealism.

It's an aesthetic defined by perfect lighting and glossy surfaces, by dramatic poses and saturated colors. It's stylized and exaggerated, the sort of image we already associate with celebrities.

Hyperrealism in the context of AI images is interesting because many in the AI art community describe these images as "photorealistic" when they are clearly cartoonish.

For these people, what's real is the output of AI systems: it's the simulation displacing reality.

The swag Pope is not the only AI-generated image that has gone viral recently. There are also fake pictures of Elon Musk holding hands with AOC, French President Emmanuel Macron running through clouds of tear gas, or Donald Trump being arrested.

In each case, the celebrity of the subject primes us to believe our eyes, as does the content, which is often linked to recent events.

In conclusion, the swag Pope image went viral because it represents a particular alignment of subject and aesthetic. It works as a fake precisely because it matches ways we already consume images today.

It's scary to think about how AI fakes will continue to spread, but it's also fascinating to see how technology is changing the way we perceive reality.