Navigating a world with A.I. images

BALTIMORE — Emmanuel Hall walks his photography class at Mervo High School through a photo shoot, teaching them about lighting, angles and focus.

“That’s the most important part of our job here is to try to give the kids as much experience as possible for them to go off to pursue their careers in communications,” he said.

He teaches skills like photography and videography through Mervo’s Media Department. Perhaps one of the most significant lessons in this class is teaching the kids how to protect their reputations and integrity by putting out real images.

“We want raw images. We want images that are untouched. That’s something that I push my students to do right off the bat,” said Hall.

And that lesson is becoming increasingly more critical as fake images, often made using artificial intelligence or A.I., are flooding social media and other outlets.

WMAR-2 News spoke to Daniel Trielli, an assistant professor of media and democracy at the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

He said generative A.I. can be used responsibly but it’s important to keep the integrity of the original photo.

“You want to make sure that as you take pictures, you have your own identity, you have your own language, your own face. Keep control of that and make sure you know that everyone can see those images and they can very easily manipulate those images as well.”

Trielli said as A.I. becomes more sophisticated, it’s harder to spot images that are real vs. fake.

“What we have to see is the context of the image. Why are people talking about it? What authoritative people are talking about it? How is this being received?”

“If it’s fake, the visual cues are going to be more and more difficult to see than the context cues.”

And in world filled with fake images, Hall preaches to his students to keep it real.

“Now we live in this digital age where things are being changed and adjusted. We just want to remind the students that it’s ok to have an original photo and keep it original.”