Several fake images of stars at the Met Gala have been widely distributed on social networks. Internet users had difficulty discerning real photos from those generated by artificial intelligence.
This May 6, all eyes were on the red carpet of the Met Gala 2024, historic fashion event organized by the popess of fashion Anna Wintour, At New York. Of Zendaya to Cardi B via Lena Situations, the stars competed in originality to respect the theme.
And Katy Perry particularly caused a sensation. On X, formerly Twitter, https://twitter.com/jxries/status/1787603212075233371?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787603212075233371%7Ctwgr%5E6c5c6299d1e133622a45a303623647d140c2b3b4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch.com%2F2024%2F05%2F06%2Fmet-gala-ai-deepfakes%2F of the singer dressed, sometimes in an imposing floral dress, others in a metal corset, are circulating on the internet. The photos have received more than 300,000 likes and more than 10 million views. The problem? The Fireworks singer was not present at the Met Gala. This is actually a deepfake photo, an image manipulated usingartificial intelligence (AI).
And many Internet users have fallen for it. “I really reposted the photo in passing that it was true,” enthuses a user in the comments. “Oh my god. You are absolutely magical,” added another.
Warning message on Twitter
The singer’s own mother was fooled. “What a beautiful dress, you look like the Pink parade, you are your own float,” writes Mary Perry, in a screenshot shared by the star. So much so that Twitter finally put a warning message – pointing out the imaginary nature of the “cliché” – under the most relayed publications.
A situation which did not fail to make the singer react. She posted the photos on her Instagram account, along with a studio rehearsal video. “I couldn’t go to the Met Gala, I had to work,” she said in the caption under the photo. The publication exceeds one million likes.
But Katy Perry is not the only star public figure to have been a victim of deepfake. A Twitter account also shared fake photos of Rihanna and https://twitter.com/souvenirgomez1/status/1787619005869518906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1787619005869518906%7Ctwgr%5E48e557cf9f6e065703379d8a8af469ba0a3597b5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftime.com%2F6975376%2Fmet-gala-ai-generated-looks%2Fwalking down a fake Met Gala carpet.
To distinguish fake photos from real ones, just take a look at the carpet. The actual Met Gala carpet was white and green. In the deepfakes, it was sometimes blue, other times red. Another tip, some paparazzi faces appear blurry or are simply non-existent.
If these deepfakes seem harmless, the images generated by AI raise the question of diffusion false information. With technological advances, and in particular the arrival of Midjourney software, synthetic images are increasingly difficult to differentiate from authentic images.
