“Artificial intelligence did not kill photography. It killed our assumption that every photograph tells the truth. In the age of synthetic images, authenticity becomes the new currency of photography.” – MJ Martin
Seeing Is No Longer Believing
All of the images in this post are fake except for the very last image, which is simply a digital scan of a old film image and is untouched my artificial intelligence. AI definitely has a place and a time in photography. It has a distinct value for storytelling and for historical restoration. But, delivering truth is rarely a credential that AI brings to the table. AI manipulates the truth. It changes reality. The cover image is an example – Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1835 to August 16, 1977) never jammed with Johann Sebastian Bach (March 31, 1685 to July 28, 1750). The same for the other images which are fun fabrications used to tell stories.
For generations, Canadians have treated the photograph as a witness. A photograph might be poorly composed, incorrectly exposed or deliberately framed, but we generally assumed that something resembling what we saw had actually existed in front of a camera.
Artificial intelligence has broken that assumption.
Today, a convincing photograph can depict a person who never existed, standing in a place they never visited, participating in an event that never occurred. Canada’s Centre for Cyber Security warns that deepfakes include artificially generated images, audio and video and that rapidly advancing technology is making them easier to create and harder to detect. (Canadian Centre for Cyber Security)
Photography has therefore crossed an extraordinary threshold. The photograph is no longer automatically evidence that an event occurred.
The Camera Was Our Witness
This distinction matters enormously.
Consider a photograph as being similar to a witness in court. Historically, we might question what the witness saw, where the witness was standing or whether the witness misunderstood the situation. Generative AI introduces something entirely different. We must now establish that the witness actually existed.
Canada’s legal system already recognizes the importance of authentication. Section 31.1 of the Canada Evidence Act places the burden on someone seeking to introduce an electronic document to provide evidence capable of supporting a finding that the document is what it claims to be. (Department of Justice Canada)
That principle is becoming increasingly relevant far beyond courtrooms.
Democracy Makes the Problem Bigger
Imagine a realistic photograph appearing online during a Canadian election showing a political leader accepting money, attending a secret meeting or participating in a protest. Millions of people could see it before journalists established whether it was genuine.
This is not merely hypothetical technology risk. Canada’s Cyber Centre has warned that generative AI has complicated the democratic information environment, while Elections Canada specifically cautions that inaccurate information can damage public trust in electoral integrity. (Canadian Centre for Cyber Security)
The old saying was that a picture is worth a thousand words. A fabricated picture may now be capable of spreading a thousand lies.
Photography Needs a Chain of Custody
The solution cannot simply be teaching people to look for strange fingers, distorted backgrounds or impossible reflections. Generative systems will improve.
Instead, photography increasingly needs something resembling the chain of custody used for physical evidence.
The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity has developed the C2PA standard, which allows Content Credentials to cryptographically record information about an image’s provenance and history. (C2PA Specification) Camera manufacturers are also moving authentication closer to the moment of capture. Sony, for example, has developed technology using in-camera digital signatures and C2PA-compatible provenance information to help verify that images originated in a camera and document subsequent editing. (Sony)
The future photograph may therefore require not just pixels, but credentials.
Truth Becomes More Valuable
AI-generated imagery is not inherently bad. It can be extraordinarily useful for illustration, advertising, education and creative expression. The problem begins when synthetic imagery masquerades as documentary reality.
This raises difficult questions for photographers, journalists and Canadians generally.
Should news organizations publish photographs without verifiable provenance? Should professional cameras digitally sign every image at capture? Should social media platforms clearly distinguish generated imagery from authenticated photography? And should photographers disclose significant AI manipulation even when the final image remains visually plausible?
Perhaps the greatest irony of artificial intelligence is that by making fake photographs almost effortless to create, it may make an authentic photograph more valuable than ever.
The photograph is not dead.
But from now on, it may have to prove that it was there.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.