More "scary" AI stuff - Googles Nano Banana
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https://www.fastcompany.com/91396655/google-nano-banana-cant-trust-photos-online
Nano Banana still sucks at generating new AI images.
But it excels at something far more powerful, and potentially sinister—editing existing images to add elements that were never there, in a way that’s so seamless and convincing that even experts like myself can’t detect the changes.
That makes Nano Banana (and its inevitable copycats) both invaluable creative tools and an existential threat to the trustworthiness of photos—both new and historical.
In short, with tools like this in the world, you can never trust a photo you see online again.
For example:
Conspiracists often claim that the moon landing was staged in a studio. Again, there’s no actual evidence to support this. But I wondered if tools like Nano Banana could fake some.
To find out, I handed Nano Banana a real NASA photo of astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon.
I then asked it to pretend the photo had been faked, and to show it being created in a period-appropriate photo studio.
The resulting image is impressive in its imagined detail. A group of men (it was NASA in the 1960s—of course they’re all men!) in period-accurate clothing stand around a soundstage with a fake sky backdrop, fake lunar regolith on the floor, and a prop moon lander.
In the center of the regolith stands an actor in a space suit, his stance perfectly matching Aldrin’s slight forward lean in the actual photo. Various flats and other theatrical equipment are unceremoniously stacked to the sides of the room.
