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the_af 7 days ago

The article is interesting, but I think it conflates two things:

"Things that never happened in the real world, and have been either created synthetically or with visual trickery"

- Man jumping into the void.

- Stalin's edited photos (Stalin didn't walk without Yezov at his side).

- North Korea's photoshopped/cloned hovercraft.

- The Cottingley Fairies, Loch Ness monster, "saucer" UFOs: visual trickery or props employed to simulate the existence of beings or vehicles that don't exist in the real world.

- Pope with jacket is of course completely faked with AI.

And

"Things that happened, but are staged or misrepresent reality/mislead the viewer".

Examples:

- The UK soldiers abusing a prisoner. The claim was probably false (in the sense in this particlar photo these weren't British soldiers) but it's true they were soldiers from some country abusing a prisoner. To my knowledge no-one claimed the photo was staged, just that it was misrepresenting the situation.

- Capa's Falling Soldier photo. This actually happened, it's just that it's likely staged.

They are not the same thing, and require different levels of skill!

AI facilitates creating anything, especially completely synthetic and fake. You don't even need to go to the location to take a photo and edit it.

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foldr 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

>The UK soldiers abusing a prisoner. [...] To my knowledge no-one claimed the photo was staged, just that it was misrepresenting the situation.

These photos were staged AFAIK. I don't think anyone believes them to show real instances of abuse.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/dec/09/iraqandthemedi...

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/sorry-we-were-hoaxed-5...

	▲	the_af 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Wow. Thanks for the correction, I didn't know this.

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david-gpu 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And some of the photos are labeled as "fake" with zero evidence that they are, indeed, fake.

I personally don't believe in Bigfoot, but the article presents no evidence of that particular shot being altered or staged in any way.

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mcphage 7 days ago | parent [-]

They don’t know specifically how it was done—but it is, in fact, fake.

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david-gpu 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

There is a difference between beliefs substantiated by a gut feeling and beliefs substantiated by evidence. Like you, I have a gut feeling that it is, indeed, a person in a suit, but I do not have any evidence for that. The distinction is important in my mind.

	▲	the_af 7 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I agree it's not evidence, but even then, going by the principle of parsimony (which does not provide evidence, but is a reasonable way of thinking about this) the most likely explanation is also the less extraordinary or convoluted: a guy in a gorilla suit. Why reach for anything else, unless one wants to believe? The existence of yetis is an extraordinary claim that would require convincing evidence by their proponents, of which this video isn't one (since it's trivial to film a guy in a suit, etc).
	▲	JKCalhoun 4 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I understand your logic. I just find I don't have patience to split hairs any more for an academic stance like yours. To do so these days is too overwhelming. As xkcd has pointed out, there are cameras everywhere now. I think we can comfortably put Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster in the bin with the Fairies.

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the_af 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, it's obviously a guy in a gorilla suit. It walks like a guy, nothing about its "gait" is animal-like. A gorilla suit is well understood technology, it's just that this one was nicely made and not a cheap costume party suit.

Same with the guy who made saucer-like UFO photos. This is obviously dishware, only people who "want to believe" would be puzzled by the photos.