“that it’s a true representation of what someone saw.”
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but photography has never ever ever been a “true” representation of what you took a picture of.
Photography is right up there with statistics in its potential for “true” information to be used to draw misleading or false conclusions. I predict that a picture with this technology may carry along with it the authority to impose a reality that’s actually not true by pointing to this built-in encryption to say “see? the picture is real” when the deception was actually carried out by the framing or timing of the picture, as has been done often throughout history.
You’re talking about “the whole truth”. If the whole is true, then all of the parts are true, so photographing only a subset of the truth (framing) is still true. If a series of events are true, then each event is true, so taking a picture at a certain time (timing) is also true.
Photos capture real photons that were present at real scenes and turn them into grids of pixels. Real photographs are all “true”. Photoshop and AI don’t need photons and can generate pixels from nothing.
As I understand it, it’s a digital signature scheme where the raw image is signed at the camera, and modifications in compliant software are signed as well. So it’s not so much “this picture is 100% real, no backsies”. Nor is it “We know all the things done to this picture”, as I doubt people who modify these photos want us to know what they are modifying.
So it’s more like “This picture has been modified, like all pictures are, but we can prove how many times it was touched, and who touched it”. They might even be able to prove when all that stuff happened.
Even that doesn’t do much to prove the image is an authentic representation of anything. People have been staging photos for as long as there have been photos, and no camera can guard against that.
“that it’s a true representation of what someone saw.”
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but photography has never ever ever been a “true” representation of what you took a picture of.
Photography is right up there with statistics in its potential for “true” information to be used to draw misleading or false conclusions. I predict that a picture with this technology may carry along with it the authority to impose a reality that’s actually not true by pointing to this built-in encryption to say “see? the picture is real” when the deception was actually carried out by the framing or timing of the picture, as has been done often throughout history.
You’re talking about “the whole truth”. If the whole is true, then all of the parts are true, so photographing only a subset of the truth (framing) is still true. If a series of events are true, then each event is true, so taking a picture at a certain time (timing) is also true.
Photos capture real photons that were present at real scenes and turn them into grids of pixels. Real photographs are all “true”. Photoshop and AI don’t need photons and can generate pixels from nothing.
That’s what is being said.
Nah, lying by omission can still tell a totally wrong narrative. Sometimes it has to be the whole truth to be the truth.
You’d make a bad programmer or mathematician.
Well… Mathematicians would agree with me
Nope
As I understand it, it’s a digital signature scheme where the raw image is signed at the camera, and modifications in compliant software are signed as well. So it’s not so much “this picture is 100% real, no backsies”. Nor is it “We know all the things done to this picture”, as I doubt people who modify these photos want us to know what they are modifying.
So it’s more like “This picture has been modified, like all pictures are, but we can prove how many times it was touched, and who touched it”. They might even be able to prove when all that stuff happened.
Even that doesn’t do much to prove the image is an authentic representation of anything. People have been staging photos for as long as there have been photos, and no camera can guard against that.