But neither visual is remotely real. The images – and scores of variations littering social media – were produced using increasingly sophisticated and widely accessible image generators powered by artificial intelligence.
Some of the recent images have been driven by this month's release of a new version of Midjourney’s text-to-image synthesis model, which can, among other things, now produce convincing images mimicking the style of news agency photos. Still, the images were enough to get him locked out of the Midjourney server, according to Higgins. The San Francisco-based independent research lab didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
Too often, the visuals are quickly reshared by others without that crucial context, she said. Indeed, an Instagram post sharing some of Higgins' images of Trump as if they were genuine garnered more than 79,000 likes.In another recent example, social media users shared a synthetic image supposedly capturing Putin kneeling and kissing the hand of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The image, which circulated as the Russian president welcomed Xi to the Kremlin this week, quickly became a crude meme.