You're listening to life kit from NPR.
Hey, everybody, it's Marielle.
There's this image that went viral earlier this year of the pope looking, honestly pretty stylish.
He was wearing this white, puffy designer coat and rocking an enormous crucifix necklace outside of it.
And he looks like he's just, you know, out for his morning coffee run.
So I know Pope Francis is supposed to be the relatable pope, but I regret to inform you that this image is fake.
It was created using AI, artificial intelligence software.
Shannon Bond is a correspondent at NPR.
She covers misinformation.
And she says if you look closely, you can see the clues.
You know, one of the sort of classic tells that people talk a lot about is that these image generators can really struggle with creating realistic hands.
Hands are for some reason, particularly tricky.
Also things like teeth and accessories like glasses and jewelry.
And so that was an example we saw with the image of the pope wearing the coat.
He seemed to be holding a coffee cup in his hand, but his fingers weren't actually holding onto the coffee cup.
And if you looked at the side of his eyeglasses, it sort of disappeared into his face, like there wasn't a rim.
The guy who made this image, by the way, is quoted in BuzzFeed saying, I just thought it was funny to see the pope in a funny jacket.
And it may seem like, okay, what's the big deal?
This picture wasn't hurting anybody.
But it does show that AI tools can make fake images that are convincing enough at first glance, and obviously that can be abused, and it can be a way to spread lies and misinformation.