What are the Origins of Our Distrust in Photographs, and Did it Begin With the Introduction of AI?

Introduction

In recent times, A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) has been attributed to our distrust of the medium of photography. The danger of its ability to misinform and its accessibility to everyone has become a topic of constant discussion - no matter what news source, social media platform, or part of the internet you go to right now, you will find some mention of it. At the time of writing, A.I. is still in a phase where it can be easily spotted without the need for intense scrutinisation by looking at details like the background and whether it is visually blurred or glitchy, checking if people in the image have fewer or more than five fingers on each hand, or the flat uncanniness of its appearance. However, I believe that this distrust emerged before A.I.'s introduction, hundreds of years before in fact, from the camera's invention in the 19th century. This introduction of photography came with the belief that they could only depict the reality of what the photographer saw ahead of the lens.

Through this piece of writing, I am going to explore the beginnings of photo manipulation through four different case studies spanning from 1860 to 1953, and compare their impact against the way that we perceive the start of AI text-prompt image generation to show - beyond the 21^st century - how we have never been able to trust photography.

Chapter 1: Early Photo Manipulation (1860-1953)

From the point of its conception, we have always been able to manipulate photography. Even before software applications such as Photoshop, skilled photo editors existed and instead of keyboards and mice, their tools were inks, airbrushes, and scalpels. They would use these tools to remove, blot out, and add things to photographs, to get the perfect composition or tell a specific story whilst trying to influence an audience.

In this chapter, I will explore three ways in which analogue photo manipulation was used in its early days to gain and maintain control of political power, for financial gain, and to deceive the general public.

The Beautification and 'Head-Swapping' of Abraham Lincoln (1860-1865)

"That image was widely disseminated during the tumultuous campaign, as Americans by the thousands bought small buttons with his tintyped image affixed to them." (Widmer, T. 2011)

During the Presidential election of the 1860s, Republicans understood how important photographs would be for Abraham Lincoln to win the Presidency. The process of photography first came to America in 1839. Still, it did not become widely popular until the 1850s with the introduction of exposing onto paper, which allowed for nationwide printing and distribution of a single image. This was a perfect way for political parties to distribute portraits of their candidates to the American public so that they could see exactly who they were voting for, and for Lincoln, this was crucial as he was relatively unknown to the electorate when he was nominated (Holzer, H. 2001). However, there was one problem for the Republican party, and that was that he was not very presentable:

"Many Democrats sang an anti-Lincoln rallying cry that concluded with: "We beg and pray you-Don't for God's sake, show his picture."" (Waters, M. 2017)

The 'Lincoln Cooper Union Photograph' - Matthew Brady (1860)

To change this they employed the help of portrait photographer Matthew Brady who was not "averse to certain forms of retouching" (Widmer, T. 2011). In one of the many subsequent photographs Brady took of Lincoln, which he went as far as to say "made me president", he enlarged his collar to make his neck appear "less scrawny" (Widmer, T. 2011) and more proportionate to the size of his head (which was a popular critique in newspapers at the time), "focused excessive amounts of light on Lincoln's face in order to distract from his gangly frame, had him curl up his fingers so that their remarkable length would go unnoticed" (Waters, M. 2017), and after taking the photo "he skilfully took out the harsh lines in the campaigner's face and yet kept all the intensity of his expression" (Hamilton, C and Ostendorf, L. 1963). The 'Lincoln Cooper Union photo' as it would come to be known, used an excessive amount of photo manipulation and retouching for a man that, in my opinion, was not really that ugly. Nevertheless, it does not stop people from suggesting how much of an impact Brady had on Lincoln's win:

"Not a savage from the wilds of Illinois, or a baboon as he was often called, but a reasonable facsimile of a human being." (Widmer, T. 2011)

The benefits of photo manipulation around this time were that it was not a process that the general population would have been aware of. This was due to the fact that photography and the process of developing a photo was not a widely accessible practice, allowing for skilful practitioners such as Brady to alter such small parts of Lincoln's appearance with the majority of Americans being none the wiser.

The 'STAY-AT-HOME CAMPAIGN' (Levy, M. 2024) also helped keep the belief that these portraits were legitimate as he only made a limited amount of public appearances, which meant that people's perception of his appearance came from a controlled set of pictures that the Republican party released. With portrait photography also being bound to the studio (for controlled lighting) and the camera's long exposure time, unedited photos of Lincoln could not be taken or released by the general public. This is one of the first instances of photo manipulation being used to gain power, lying to voters to put across a 'better' image that hides insecurity, giving an image that lies to a nation that loves the photograph: "We know how highly Americans regarded these seemingly primitive pictures. They placed them in the most sacred spots in their homes" (Holzer, H. 2001).

This was one of the first ever documented cases of photo manipulation that was part of a political campaign, opening the door for future presidential elects to use images to deceive and lie to voters. An example of this happened 144 years later in a TV advertisement for George Bush's 2004 campaign where an image of a crowd of soldiers was used to show voters that Bush had the backing of the United States army, but it was quickly pointed out that the people in the crowd were edited in with soldiers being duplicated over and over to emulate the look of a large crowd, with the same faces being spotted in different rows. It's weird to think that a piece of photo manipulation from 1860 was and, in some ways, still is more convincing and better at hiding its tracks than an example of it from the 21st Century.

'WHATEVER IT TAKES' President Bush Campaign (2004)

"Pictures helped transfigure Lincoln… into Father Abraham, The Great Emancipator, and the martyr to the union he helped save… Transformed him into an icon that symbolizes limitless American opportunity" (Holzer, H. 2001)

You would think for being one of the first instances of photo manipulation it would be the worst, but I would go as far as to say that it is one of the best, paving the way for modern incarnations of this in the form of modern Photoshopping practises in fashion and politics alike (for worst or for better). After finding research on the Lincoln Cooper Union photo I realised that I'd seen the image before in a textbook I had to read for secondary school, and I would have possibly gone my entire life without knowing that it was edited. Bravo Matthew Brady.

The 'Haunting' Photography of William H. Mumler (1863-1869)

"Photographs have been treasured in a belief that… they could not lie, but here is a revelation that they may be made to lie with a most deceiving exactness" (New York World, 1869)

William H. Mumler was known as a 'spirit photographer' who started his practice in 1861 when, in his account, he was "experimenting with his friends' equipment" [1] when taking a self-portrait. When developing the photograph, a translucent form of a girl appeared next to him whom he claimed to be his younger cousin who had died (Fineman, M. 2013). After two years of offering his service of spirit portraits to "Boston's most influential families" (Manseau, P. 2017) he was found out. A figure showed up in two of his photographs and they were discovered to be a local resident who was still alive. This stopped his practice in Boston up until 1868 when he moved to New York City where he opened a studio on Lower Broadway. This lasted an even shorter amount of time because, in the following year, he was arrested and charged with larceny and fraud.

"The three-week hearing was a media sensation, extensively covered in all five New York daily newspapers as well as in national publications… where it ran as a front-page story." (Fineman, M. 2013)

'Spirit Photographs' - William Mumler (1863-1869)

Mumler targeted two sets of vulnerable people to ensure that his photographs would garner a reputation and trust: Boston's elite families who had money to get portraits produced, had recent relatives pass away and were using the portraits as a way to grieve; and the "burgeoning spiritualist movement" who were prevalent at the time in America, and who believed that "the human spirit exists beyond the body and that the dead can - and do - communicate with the living" (Fineman, M. 2013). Targeting these people was both clever and incredibly manipulative, as these families were in mourning over relatives passing and trying to, by any means, find ways to not let go of their memory. He also knew that these photos could act as evidence to spiritualists that the dead wereactively trying to show themselves to the living. Because of both of these groups' beliefs and circumstances, he was aware that it would create free advertising for him and get more people through the door, which equalled more money during a time of uncertainty financially after the American Civil War. Nevertheless, you must have to be very strong-minded to not feel an ounce of guilt towards these families to never admit to forging these images.

It is understandable why during this time people would believe Mumler's practice because just like Lincoln's portrait, the general public was not aware of photo manipulation and wholeheartedly believed the camera could not lie. However, looking at these photographs with modern eyes, it is clear that the photos are disingenuous. The 'ghosts' do not look proportionate to the sitters that they are next to, this is especially evident in the portrait of John J. Glover, where an older lady is standing directly behind him. Her head proportionally is significantly smaller than his meaning that it was possibly another portrait that was taken at a different distance to Glover's and spliced over the top of it to emulate the look of a ghost. This is also seen in the edges of the figures as they look quite jagged and sharp which makes me believe that they have been cut out and somehow edited together.

John J. Glover - William H. Mumler (CA. 1863)

Mumler's case would have been the first instance that many people would have heard of someone being able to produce fake or edited photographs. This led to a public outcry in newspapers everywhere over the trustability of photos from this point onwards. Photos were now not just trusted blindly but meticulously studied for signs of tampering, signs which - even with these comparably basic tools - were extremely difficult to spot to the untrained eye.

His practice was all but nailed down to image falsification, but his method was never discovered. It has been theorised that he used double exposure to create the look of a ghostly presence in his images. But I think it is more likely he found a way of splicing two portrait negatives together by printing one and then another over the top of it, as it was known that he was experimenting with the chemicals for the process of printing photographs. Through this, he developed a way of being able to print an image multiple times which was not possible before, and negated the need for an illustrator or wood engraver that newspapers relied on for images in those days. This revolutionised the way that images were produced for print.

Alongside creating distrust in images Mumler also developed a process that would allow people to consume photography regularly, creating a need for photos for articles rather than relying on just illustrations. Ironic considering how the possible process he used to falsify these portraits could be a main factor in our need for photography in the media in the modern day.

"Not only did photographs become ubiquitous, they emerged as the standard of proof for whether or not something actually happened… a likely falsifier of images played a pivotal role in the creation of the image-obsessed culture that still defines a nation." (Manseau, P. 2017)

Joseph Stalin's Falsification of Soviet History (1917-1953)

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past." (Orwell, G. 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', 1949)

By the start of the 1900s, photography had become a worldwide practice and the standard for image representation in printed ephemera. Before photographs, painters and illustrators would be used to present an image to readers of articles. This would allow for these representations to be manipulated and skewed in ways that were against or in favour of the overall narrative of the article and guide the reader to a specific opinion. With the introduction of the photograph, however, different editing practices were needed. If there were certain blemishes on a person's face or a piece of the image that needed removal, which included people, an airbrush was used to cover them up. This was because an airbrush was a less harsh way of painting over things which left no brush strokes, and if used skilfully, no noticeable traces of tampering on the photo. Another way a photo could be manipulated was by pairing airbrushing with overlapping negatives to add figures into photos that were not otherwise there.

"The systematic falsification of history itself." (Cohen, S. 1997)

Political parties and leaders around the world understood the power that photographs had on influencing people's opinions surrounding their political biases; no one knew that more than Joseph Stalin and his Communist Party. During the birth of the Soviet Union in 1917, photos of the revolutionary, and soon-to-be leader Vladimir Lenin, were spread around the country's newspapers, with images of him addressing large crowds of people. These influential photographs would have pushed his ideals onto a weakened nation that was seeking change during the Great War (WWI). Many of the photos of the revolution, without the public's knowledge, had been edited to have more "dramatic crowd scenes" (King, D. 1997) which were published across the country to falsify the extent of Lenin's influence. In 1922 Lenin had his first stroke, and his General Secretary Joseph Stalin was given the reins to lead the country during his absence. As to not worry the Soviet people, the Party began to produce pieces of art and edited pictures of Stalin and Lenin together to show that Stalin was to be trusted and respected. However, in reality the exact opposite was true, as Lenin, even when knocking on death's door, called for a vote to remove Stalin from his position, believing he was abusing his power. This ultimately did not get passed.

Undoctored Lenin Crowd Scene seen above and Doctored Crowd Scene seen below (1920)

In the 29 years Stalin was leader of the Soviet Union he used photographs in two main ways: to elevate himself with airbrushed photos to make him look better groomed (similar to how celebrities nowadays use filters and face apps), and to deceive Soviet citizens by removing exiled politicians and people of opposition from photos where he appeared with them. He then demanded that printed photographs of these people that were already out there had to be politically vandalised.[2] and you would be imprisoned if you did not comply.

When he first officially took over from Lenin after his death, the Communist Party had some portraits taken of Stalin for press release. These photos had been treated with a vignette edit using an airbrush to help him transcend into "godlike status, quite removed from reality" (King, D. 1997). The same photo was used in 1939 for a photobiography to celebrate his 60th birthday, however, this time it appeared with heavy airbrushing, to a noticeable degree, to neaten his hair and moustache to appear better groomed. His face had also been completely smoothed over, with the exception of crow's feet by his eye to try and keep some authenticity. The irony was that the photo ended up in the 1930s section of the biography, seven years after the original was taken.

The original picture unedited (left) and post edit (right) - (1939)

The other side of Stalinist photo editing was the 'removal' of disgraced political figures from photos. A lot of Stalin's associates began to rebel against him due to the ideals and methods through which he became a dictator. Many of them were part of the former Bolshevik party which Lenin founded that ultimately turned into the Communist party. His response to this was to imprison or execute anyone who he believed posed a threat to his power which became later known as 'The Great Purge' (1936-38). He paired this physical removal with their pictorial removal, as he knew that photographs of these executed officials would keep the idea of rebellion alive in the minds of the Soviet public. One of the most well-known examples of this was after the purge, with the removal of the chief of the Soviet security police Nikolai Yezhov who oversaw the unpublicized trials, false imprisonments, and executions. He had become a man of suspicion to Stalin in 1938 which led to his title being stripped, then in 1939, he was arrested, eventually coming to a grim end in 1940 (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. 2024). Stalin ordered his removal from photographs, as in this example where the pair are standing next to the Moscow Canal; his absence being covered up by more 'water' (Blakemore, E. 2018).

Nikolai Yezhov's removal (1939)

A portrait of Djakhan Abidova, 'disgraced' member of the Communist Party in Uzbekistan intentionally vandalised (1930s)

To further remove their existence, Stalin encouraged Soviet citizens to destroy pictures of the disgraced in books by ripping pages out, mutilating the photos with blades, and scribbling over faces and names with ink. If you were caught with things linked with his opposition, especially photographs, he believed you followed their beliefs and you were arrested. The influence of photos threatened Stalin so much that he needed to be in control of which ones could stay in circulation. This political vandalism spread as far as the classroom, where children were already being exposed to a biased Stalinist version of Soviet history. Teachers got their students to blot over photos as the people became disgraced. This vandalism made these photographs physical representations of their cruel and unjust deaths, with only hollow shells of their photos left.

Citizens at this time were aware of Stalin's photo manipulation. It was almost an open secret, especially when the same photos were being reproduced repeatedly with figures missing and Stalin looking less and less natural. But to him, this was not the goal. Short term, he wanted to nullify the threat of losing control of the country by removing his opposition and stopping the physical representations of revolt by dealing with the pictorial representations of resistance. In the long term, he wanted to shape his legacy for future generations. He believed that destroying pictorial evidence of opposition would ensure his version of history lived on and that they would view him as a godly figure who brought prosperity to the nation. This continued even 70 years after his death, with his lies still being taught and spoken about up until the late 1980s. His understanding of the importance and power of images and his need for deception he used through their manipulation allowed him to maintain his dictatorship.

The most famous example of his habit of removing people from his photos – the original (left) and the edited (right) - (1926)

"There is hardly a publication from the Stalinist period that does not bear the scars of this political vandalism." (King, D. 1997)

Chapter 2: The Legacy of Photo Hoaxing - 'The Surgeon's Photograph' (1934)

The other side of our distrust in photos has come from famous photographic hoaxes of the 20th Century. These sometimes utilised photo manipulation in a similar way to the examples from the previous chapter. However, many of the most influential ones were produced by everyday people who had little to no experience in taking or developing pictures. They took advantage of the quality of the technology available and used props and costumes, in some cases, to make it look more realistic. The blurry images produced would make it hard to distinguish whether or not the thing that you can see is real or fake. The excuse could be used that they had to take a quick snapshot of the subject before it disappeared out of shot. This approach would also allow the photo to show little to no signs of tampering. Another thing that I will explore in this chapter is the influence that the reputations of the people who produced and distributed these photos had on the image's ability to be trusted.

The 'Surgeon's Photograph': The First of the Modern-Day Supernatural Icons (1934)

"It remains an important part of photo history and serves as a reminder of photography's fickle nature with truth." (Kiernan, K. 2017)

Throughout history, we have always been captivated by the supernatural and the unknown. This fascination, driven by fear and intrigue, clouds our ability to distinguish between what is real and what is fake, which - as has been seen - can be taken advantage of . This could not be truer for the 'Surgeon's Photograph' of the Loch Ness Monster. The legend of Nessie has been part of Scottish folklore for centuries, described usually as a serpent-looking monster or even closely matching the description of the extinct Plesiosaur which it is often attributed to; if it even exists. People have claimed to have witnessed it rise its long neck and head out of the

The Surgeon's Photograph - (1934)

Loch before submerging again. It was the 1930s when the monster gained worldwide notoriety after local woman, Aldie MacKay, claimed to have seen a "water beast" emerge from the Loch from her bedroom window (Loch Ness Centre. 2025), stirring a media frenzy to try and capture evidence of its existence.

Due to this attention, the Daily Mail tasked the self-titled big-game hunter, Marmaduke Wetherell, to investigate the Loch in December 1933. This led to Wetherell's discovery of what appeared to be large footprints from an animal not known to the Highlands claiming with his attentive eye that whatever the creature that created these tracks was "a very powerful soft-footed animal about 20 feet long." (Darnton, J 1994). When he returned with plaster casts of the footprints they were analysed by the National History Museum, but they were made with the use of a dried hippo foot by a person looking to fool investigators (Kiernan, K. 2017). Wetherell was publicly ridiculed by the Daily Mail following the discovery, and this saw him wanting to get his own back on his employers. He orchestrated a plan months later in 1934 to produce a photograph and fool them into printing it as evidence of its existence, enlisting the help of his son, Ian Collins, who was tasked with taking the photo and his stepson, Christopher Spurling, who helped him to make a model of Nessie (James, D. 1968). The model, carefully mounted on top of a toy submarine (Shine, A. 2006), was then faithfully positioned and framed in the photograph in a way that mimicked eyewitness descriptions of the creature. But the climax of this scheme was entrusting the help of Robert Kenneth Wilson, a friend of his who was a surgeon, to send the photograph off to the Daily Mail knowing that he could not do it himself as his involvement would have immediately put the picture's validity into question even if the image was actually of the creature. He even went as far as getting Wilson to take the photo plate to be developed so that the origin of it could not be tracked back to him.

And it worked.

Wetherell understood that the nature of Wilson's job role would aid in the photograph's believability, alongside a convincing story of how he came across the creature and was able to capture its image, saying that he noticed the creature whilst out driving along the northern part of the Loch (Boese, A. 2015). Before publishing the photograph however, Wilson had asked that his name not be used in the article which led to the Daily Mail publishing the image under the headline: "LONDON SURGEON'S PHOTO OF THE MONSTER: Monster YARDS from Lochside" which led to the photograph's name. The emphasis on the job title of 'Surgeon' would have created blind faith in people in the 30s, it would have meant that he was a man to be trusted, who would have no reason to lie to gain respect or praise because he already had it. If you cannot trust a doctor, who can you trust?

"Dr. Wilson apparently went along with the hoax to be a good sport, without the slightest inkling it would be so successful. The British Medical Association warned him his tale was putting the medical profession under a cloud." (Darnton, J 1994)

Due to the limited editing of the photograph, other than the cropping of the image to make the model look larger than it was which, was done by the Daily Mail themselves, (putting into question whether or not they knew the photo was a hoax but published anyway for public attention to their paper), it would have been difficult at the time of its publishing to identify it as a fake especially because of the quality of film and cameras that were accessible to the public and the subtle appearance of a black shadowy figure did not dramatise the creature which allowed this hoax to slip through the cracks. It is also important to remember that in 1934, just like the Soviet public's limited knowledge of photography at the start of the Stalinist era, photography was still widely trusted and thought to only represent the truth and people would have wanted it to be so that they could finally confirm that Nessie did, in fact, exist. The idea that a legend so widely known to the world such as this being confirmed scratches that itch in the back of the mind of the many who want to believe that there is an element of fantasy to the monotonous world that they find themselves in.

The edited image by the Daily Mail (right) next to the original (left) - (1934)

The photograph's validity was not put into question until 1984, 50 years after its publishing, and only debunked in 1994. Up to this point 'The Surgeon's Photograph' was widely observed as the most compelling piece of evidence to 'prove' the Loch Ness Monster's existence. A writer for the British Journal of Photography, Steuart Campbell, in an article aptly titled 'The Surgeon's Monster Hoax' almost figured out the secret behind the photograph concluding: "the object in the water could only have been two or three feet long, at most, and it probably was an otter or a marine bird." (Boese, A. 2015). However, in 1994 it was officially debunked to the public. Christopher Spurling came out and detailed his, his stepbrother's, and his father's involvement in the hoax to two men trying to disprove the photograph, David Martin and Alastair Boyd, who published their findings in a book titled 'Nessie: The Surgeon's Photograph Exposed'; showing how influential Wilson's job role was in validating the image and keeping it believable with no one questioning it until this point.

Even with the dismissal of the photograph people still widely associate it with the myth of the Loch, showcasing not only the potential weight that even known hoax photography can have in producing world-famous phenomenona, but also how there can be potentially positive byproducts of photo manipulation, as the myth of Nessie would not be part of pop culture and would mean that Scotland would not have produced something equally as influential for tourism. Ever since the myth came to worldwide knowledge in 1933, the local area around the Loch has been able to generate over £40 million (Carmichael, J. 2024) in Loch Ness Monster-related tourism. Wetherell practically invented the hoaxing of the supernatural to the world and none will be as influential as this was to modern-day culture; with how easy it is to debunk photographs now and the technology that exists, no photo stays trusted for long.

This case study is also interesting in showcasing the power that a person's reputation can have in impacting a person's trust in their photos. If there was even a sniff of Wetherell's involvement in the photograph's conception there is no way that it would have been believed for so long, if it would have been believed at all. This deception from a surgeon in my opinion also has influenced our distrust in images because it displays the ability everyone has to lie, even the most reputable of people.

"Since the publication of the Surgeon's Photograph… we have come to mistrust photographs more frequently than we view them as evidence." (Kiernan, K. 2017)

In my opinion, this has to go down as one of the best photographic-based hoaxes ever. It was a product of its time through Wetherell's utilisation of the limitations of the medium in creating an image of the model in such a way that would make exposing it almost impossible, and this can never be done in the 21st century. Any photo depicting something of this magnitude, like a creature hiding in the deep that has not been uncovered, could immediately be debunked through extensive photo forensics. But it is impressive to think that the Surgeon's Photograph's validity outlived all of the parties involved in its creation, including Spurling, who died before his confession was published.

Chapter 3: Our Distrust of Photography in the Modern-Day - The Rise of A.I. Image Generation (2019-2023)

"The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized content creation, enabling us to produce highly authentic and diverse outputs, such as images, videos, texts, and music that bear a striking resemblance to human-created media." (Ricker, J., Assenmacher, D., Holz, T., Fischer, A. & Quiring, E. 2024)

Something that you cannot hide from in the present day whilst consuming photographic media is AI. In the past few years, it has become increasingly more accessible to the public through companies like 'OpenAI' releasing the first mainstream piece of software 'DALL-E' in 2021 and its more refined development 'DALL-E 2' in 2022, which allows users to produce photorealistic images from just a simple text prompt (Brigham Young University, 2025). To understand just how accessible this software has become, all you need to do is look at how many images have been generated through these new types of software. From the beginning of 2022 to the start of 2023 alone, over 15 million images have been produced in this kind of software (Valyaeva, A. 2023). If I compare this 1 year of output to the time it took analogue photography to amass the same number of images, there is a 149-year difference (Kahil, N. 2023).

"Since the launch of DALLE-2, people are creating an average of 34 million images per day." (Valyaeva, A. 2023)

It is no wonder then why the question when looking at photographs in the 2020s that appear to be fake has changed from "Is this photoshopped?" to "Is this AI?". The ease of this style of image production, mixed with the digital age; including our reliance on social media to find and gather information surrounding world issues, has been extremely damaging to our trust in photographs. Especially as a lot of its early use has been on topics in and around politics. This is especially evident surrounding Donald Trump and his controversies surrounding the use of AI profile photos to have fake accounts spew pro-Trump posts out onto Facebook in 2019 before the 2020 election, fake photos of Trump's arrest in 2023 becoming viral on Twitter (now known as X), and even his election win in 2024.

AI generated image of Trump's arrest - (2023)

"They could be used to create fake, incriminating images to show people somewhere they shouldn't be, or used as forms of bribery or humiliation - or on a larger scale to distort political processes." (O'Dwyer, E. 2023)

During the famous 2020 US election campaign that saw Donald Trump and Joe Biden going head-to-head, Facebook deleted 610 accounts, 89 Facebook pages, 156 groups and 72 Instagram accounts that had been mass reposting the same pro-Trump news articles to a combined amassed following of 55 million (Sardarizadeh, S. 2019). It is important to know that this was at a time when Trump was almost impeached and it was looking more likely that Biden would win the election. This activity was linked with the media company, 'Epoch', which would have been positively impacted if Trump stayed in office due to their biased political articles towards him, and the potential gain in the audience that a win could have caused. However, the most interesting thing about these accounts was the fact that amajority of the accounts' profile images were photorealistic faces of people that did not exist, made through image composites of real people's faces being used to teach AI to generate 'faces'. This is where the first limitations of AI come in, through more scrutinising lenses it is easy to see minor imperfections showing up in them. An example, in this case, is the backgrounds of these generated images looking off, with strands of hair coming from nowhere or random blurs showing up, showing remnants of the original composites. AI relies on this digital age's habit of quickly consuming media without a second thought. At a glance, the profile photos look real and before being deleted may have been interacted with by Trump supporters who would be none the wiser.

Examples of the AI generated faces and discrepancies in the images - Facebook, Graphika, DFR Lab (2019)

Different groups with these AI accounts sharing the same article - Facebook, Graphika, DFR Lab (2019)

"This likely isn't the last we'll hear of artificial intelligence used to manipulate consumers, a fear that's grown as artificial intelligence gets more sophisticated." (Nuñez, M. 2019)

Another example of this is the fake AI-generated photographs of Trump's arrest and his mugshot spread across X in 2023. Although these photographs were not all that convincing, they show the power that generated images can have on mainstream media coverage of particular topics like this, with these images being reported on almost as much as Trump's actual arrest. In most cases, AI in the political field is being used almost like political cartoons were during both world wars, to humiliate and bring attention to a leader's mistakes. For this example, it was pretty harmless but shows the potential AI can have to misinform as the software gets more and more refined, to the point where it will be almost indistinguishable from reality. Even though our trust in images is already minimal, it will get to a point where we cannot trust any photo that we see.

Conclusion:

After looking at these case studies I have concluded that these earlier instances of photo manipulation and hoaxing are more to blame for our distrust of photography because of their ability to fool people for as long as they did and in such a convincing way that without the modern-day understanding and research into why they are fake, we could still be believing them. In the case of Lincoln's photograph, the editing was so minimal to the point that it would be difficult to know that it had been manipulated without the knowledge of photo forensics. However, with the examples seen in this last chapter, anyone who looks at the images longer than a few seconds would be able to figure out that they were generated by AI and that is the difference in their impact. Lincoln's photograph does not rely on our inability to focus on detail in the social media age, it works now and will continue to work whilst there is still a record of it. The same goes for the Surgeon's Photograph, because without Christopher Spurling's confession it could have continued to baffle and keep speculation surrounding the Loch Ness Monster alive further than just to 'believers'.

In saying that, it does not mean that the continuing rapid evolution and the ability of the software to make fewer mistakes, will not cause AI to overtake photo manipulation as the reason why we distrust photography. Allowing this kind of technology to be as accessible as it is now would be incredibly detrimental to our capability to distinguish reality from the generated. The idea of the image as we know it will completely change. We would not be able to trust anything. The only way that I think that we would be able to stop the apocalypse of image consumption would be for countries to create laws surrounding AI generation to stop its use in news reports which would allow the reduction of the spread of misinformation because without that there would be no stopping it. Companies like OpenAI not releasing more accurate-to-photo image generators to the general public could also stop this, but as we know when a company knows they can make a massive profit on something, and even if it is detrimental to us all, it would not stop them.

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Footnotes

1. A quote from William Mumler in: Fineman, M. (2013) Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop. Yale University Press, New Haven, [pg. 22-24]

2. Political Vandalism - "The defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols." (Lai, T. 2020)