Balenciaga Pope
In plain wordsA 2023 AI-generated photo of Pope Francis in a stylish white puffer coat that fooled many viewers, becoming a landmark example of how convincing fake images had become.
Popular name for a photorealistic AI-generated image, made with MidjourneyMidjourney, prop. n.: A popular paid AI image generator, first used by typing prompts into the chat app Discord, known for its polished, painterly look; it can also animate images into short videos., showing Pope Francis in a long, white, designer-style puffer coat, which circulated in March 2023 and was taken as genuine by large numbers of viewers, including celebrities. Its harmless subject made it a clean demonstration that image generatorstext-to-image model, n.: An AI system that creates a picture from a written description, such as 'a fox reading a newspaper, in watercolor', usually within seconds. had crossed a threshold of realism: the telltale flaws — a malformed hand, a blurred crucifix chain, a distorted coffee cup — were visible only on close inspection. Arriving days after fake images of Donald Trump being arrested, it became a standard reference in discussions of synthetic mediasynthetic media, n.: Images, video, audio or text created or substantially altered by AI rather than recorded or written directly by people, whether for art, entertainment, business or deception., deepfakesdeepfake, n.: A fake but realistic video, photo or voice recording made with AI that puts words in a real person's mouth or shows them in a scene that never happened., provenance labeling and media literacy, and is often described as an early mass-scale AI image hoax.
Since the Balenciaga Pope, our photo desk checks provenance before anything viral runs.
Origin
Created by Pablo Xavier, a 31-year-old construction worker from Chicago, and posted online on 24 March 2023; it spread rapidly on Twitter and Reddit before being debunked. The nickname alludes to the luxury fashion house Balenciaga, whose style the coat evoked; the brand had no involvement.
Related
- synthetic mediasynthetic media, n.: Images, video, audio or text created or substantially altered by AI rather than recorded or written directly by people, whether for art, entertainment, business or deception.
- deepfakedeepfake, n.: A fake but realistic video, photo or voice recording made with AI that puts words in a real person's mouth or shows them in a scene that never happened.
- MidjourneyMidjourney, prop. n.: A popular paid AI image generator, first used by typing prompts into the chat app Discord, known for its polished, painterly look; it can also animate images into short videos.
- AI handsAI hands, n.: The tendency of early AI image generators to draw hands badly — extra or missing fingers, twisted joints — which became a running joke and a quick way to spot fake images.
- liar's dividendliar's dividend, n.: The advantage dishonest people gain once everyone knows fakes are easy to make: they can wave away real evidence against them by claiming it was made by AI.
- AI watermarkingAI watermarking, n.: Hiding an invisible signal in AI-generated text, images, audio or video so that software can later tell the content was made by AI — like a banknote's watermark, but undetectable to the eye.
Mentioned in
Heart on My SleeveHeart on My Sleeve, prop. n.: A 2023 song that used AI to imitate the voices of Drake and The Weeknd without their involvement; it went viral before being pulled, becoming a landmark case for AI voice cloning in music.