Image Alteration and Photo Creation
Protecting Trust in Historical Images
I fell for it. The lure of AI altered and enhanced images. Perhaps you have too.
Periodically, I check into ChatGPT and try to enhance or generate an image. The cover image includes details I provided about my 2x great-grandfather, James Wilson, regarding his Civil War service and the ships he served on. For image reference, I uploaded an image of his son. I don’t have a photo of James.
It’s a nice picture, but historically inaccurate, and I doubt my 2x great-grandfather looked like this.
Statement on Protecting Trust in Historical Images
On November 4th, the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy published an official statement on the topic. You can read it here
When you use MyHeritage.com to enhance, colorize, or animate a photograph, icons appear on the image. ChatGPT doesn’t do that. Whether or not an image is the original is in the eye of the beholder.
Can you spot it? Perhaps. Even if you can now, you likely won’t be able to do so in the future. The technology is getting better.
The Coalition is asking users to take matters into their own hands by doing the following:
Always label. Provide a human-readable label stating that the image was modified or generated.
Always cite. Note the original source and that the image was modified or generated.
Use as Illustration, not Evidence. This is a very good point. Altered and generated images are not historical fact. Even enhanced family photos can include some untruths.
Two Additional Points
In addition to these three points, I’d suggest the following:
Date the Image. Include the date of the modification or creation of the image for clarity. AI models are constantly evolving, so noting when you created or enhanced an image may become important.
Use Metadata. Include the citation in the metadata, including the date and the AI model.
So many great points Maureen! It will be very hard to find accuracy in identifying and dating photos in the future. Getting harder even now. I even struggle when clients want me to crop borders off photos now, as it alters some of the identifying information. Doing that on some cabinet cards now - feel like I will provide both images.
Greetings Maureen, I’ve been following your work for a little while, and I really appreciate the depth you bring to these topics.
I explore something similar, but from a slightly stranger angle: forgotten travel narratives, old geographies, and the ideas they obscured from modern history.
My latest piece dives into an obscure book that records giant beings with a clarity that raises more questions than it answers.
If that kind of thing interests you, here’s the link:
https://open.substack.com/pub/jordannuttall/p/the-history-of-giants?r=4f55i2&utm_medium=ios