~Spot the differences: Original drug bust photo (left) vs. AI-modified version (right)~
A Maine police department’s attempt to add their logo to a drug bust photo backfired spectacularly when citizens caught them lying about using artificial intelligence to alter evidence photos.
“This is NOT an AI-generated photo,” Westbrook Police declared on Facebook when first questioned about oddities in their photos of seized meth and fentanyl. They doubled down, insisting “Westbrook PD is not and would never generate an AI photo to try and depict evidence.” But internet sleuths weren’t buying it. Missing “cookie” stickers, vanished drug residue, and mysteriously altered colors pointed to AI manipulation. Within days, the department was forced to admit the truth — they had indeed used AI software, supposedly just to add their department patch to the image.
The incident exposed an alarming gap between police technological capabilities and understanding. When an officer fed the evidence photo through what they thought was “a photoshop app,” the AI rewrote reality — altering drug packaging, removing key details, and creating what amounts to falsified evidence documentation. Even more troubling, the department didn’t notice these changes before posting.
“The fact that the person who posted it and put it through ChatGPT didn’t notice the differences because they were very obvious…it makes me wonder how much people understand about technology and how easy it is to fool people,” said local resident Jessica Wellman, capturing widespread concern about police departments wielding powerful AI tools they don’t fully grasp.
Republished from Boing Boing under Creative Commons License.
Bahaha the text looks like it’s been through a blender. It’s so obviously AI generated.
That being said, now I want to make a bunch of garbled text stickers and wear them while committing crimes, just to use that as my defense. “Your honor, it’s clear these photos were faked! Just look at the text!”
Not to mention everything looks like it has vasline smothered on it
Holy shit. That’s an amazing idea…
it’s wild how they just lie and the press accepts it at face value every time
If only they had any consequences for blatantly lying to the public. Nope, not even a slap on th wrist.
It’s trivially easy to add a logo to a photo even in MS Paint, but I’m not surprised the cops went with the “no thought required” option instead.
Never mind the evidence being altered, their own damn patch isn’t even correct
Any two bit public defender will have this case thrown out now
The AI photo doesn’t look any more incriminating than the left - at least I can’t see what’s worse…
There’s 3 red bags of some powder and a blue bowl with a baggie in it and a spoon. The scales also look more used in the left photo.
Some idiot told the robot ‘paste our logo in’ and didn’t understand it would affect the whole image.
Calling it AI generated is still a stretch, when… you can see the original image right there. The posted version is as accurate as a shitty photograph or an artist’s rendition. They did in fact have these bags of whatever.
