A viral photo showing Pope Francis pictured with two young women in a hot tub, is a fake image created using a generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool online and is not a real photo of the pope.
The fabrication is the latest to add to growing concerns that easy-to-access hyper-realistic AI generated images and videos are being weaponized to spread misinformation and disinformation across the world.
In March, another AI-generated photo showing the head of the Roman Catholic church wearing a puffer jacket went viral on social media, with many people believing it to be true. That image was made using the AI art tool Midjourney.
In the latest photo, Pope Francis is seen inside a hot tub with his arms around two women.
The fake image is being shared by Hindu right-wing users in India on Twitter and Facebook with sarcastic captions.
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The same photo is also being shared on Facebook with the same misleading claim.
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FACT-CHECK
BOOM was able to ascertain the viral photo is an AI-generated synthetic image and not a real photo showing the pope.
We spotted several anomalies in the photo which strongly indicated that the image was created using AI.
The hand and fingers of the woman on the left side of the photo do not appear human-like, which strongly suggests that it is an AI-generated photo. Several researchers, journalists, and social media users have pointed out that AI tools struggle to accurately recreate hands and specifically fingers in photographs so far.
While fact-checking a real photo we often rely on a reverse image search which shows us if the photo appeared anywhere else and in what context. We might also use other photos or videos or news stories or eyewitness accounts if any, to corroborate that an event took place.
However, with an AI-generated image, we are trying to verify something that never took place. So we decided to use an AI tool to show how such images can easily be faked.
We used Midjourney, an AI-powered tool that generates hyper realistic images with simple text prompts.
Using the AI tool, we tried to describe the same viral image to it, and gave it the prompt text - "Pope Francis in a jacuzzi filled with water along with two Caucasian women wearing bikinis, with one on the left of Pope Francis smiling and the one on the right looking towards Pope Francis"
The below photo was generated by Midjourney and is very similar to the viral photo.
A glance at the photo shows many similarities with the viral photo like Pope Francis's outfit is the same and the woman's face on the left is also similar. They are also sitting in a similar position as in the viral photo and both photos have the same visual depth.
The four women in the two photographs do not exist and are created using generative AI models that are trained on large databases of images.
A comparison of the viral photo and the AI-generated photo using Midjourney shows that they are very similar and indicates that the viral photo was also created using an AI tool.