Charity Allegedly Uses AI Images in Advertisements
A charity has published a series of advertisements that appear to have been created using artificial intelligence (AI) image generators.
A series of ads for U.K.-based Charity Right immediately caught the eye of the users on Reddit where they were posted.
“Am I tripping or did this charity use AI-generated images for their ads?” Was the title for one prominent Reddit post in which people were in agreeance that the images were generated by a program such as Midjourney.
PetaPixel has contacted Charity Right for confirmation on whether the images were generated from AI.
Telltale Signs
Redditors pointed out that one of the children in the photo has different colored eyes and a young girl has a mustache.
“The Ukraine shirt is also a dead giveaway,” writes one user. “It likes to add that in when you prompt anything related to charity.”
It’s well-known that AI image generators struggle with hands and the only hand in the images is out of proportion and missing a finger.
Charity Right, based in Bradford, England, is a registered charity with the British government and its website and social media channels are filled with real photos.
It is apparently only on Reddit where the synthetic images have been used.
“I don’t mind AI art, but if you can’t get an actual photo of a hungry child, how can we believe that any donations are actually being used to feed them?,” Write one Redditor. “It just seems strange to me.”
However, one commenter claiming to work for a charity says that they used Midjourney to generate a kids’ poster recently.
“Let me tell you our side of the story: We are a local charity and we need funds cause every single penny goes to the kids we help,” the person says.
They go on to say that “you cannot just use random kids’ pics” and that the kids are “super vulnerable” among other reasons.
In December, a charity in Toronto freely admitted to using AI images for a campaign.
