Local news agencies in the US say that Donald Trump recently said he would be arrested on Tuesday (21) and called his followers to protest in the streets. The statement quickly spread across social media as the former US president is being investigated for possibly making illegal payments to former porn star Stormy Daniels.
However, as nothing has happened so far, Twitter user Eliot Higgins decided to use the Midjourney v5 artificial intelligence to create images showing what Trump’s arrest would look like and the result was very interesting, reaching more than 3.2 million views.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 20, 2023
As we can see in the published sequences, the former president appears at various times being approached by police in various ways, some of the images show his wife and children as if the facts had really happened, but all the images are false, generated by the powerful artificial intelligence.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 21, 2023
The images show several phases including Trump’s trial, the reaction of his family members after he was convicted and even the moment he enters prison and starts wearing the famous orange prison jumpsuit, where the former president appears working out, playing basketball and cleaning prison areas.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 21, 2023
Although the creations are interesting to show the power of artificial intelligence, some users have already been concerned about the level of detail they present, as they could easily deceive unsuspecting people.
In this context, The Guardian stated that threats over the internet have increased since assumptions about Trump’s arrest, with some supporters flocking to parts of the country such as New York, where there could be a big stir if the former president is really stuck.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 21, 2023
In this way, these images can motivate demonstrations that can turn violent in the real world as well. Some users even suggested that Higgins add a watermark to them to indicate that they are fake, but others still wonder if this is really necessary, as creations of this type are becoming more and more common.
An example of this is TikTok’s filters, which will now flag when an image is generated using these features within your app to prevent fake images from going viral as real ones.
— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) March 21, 2023
At press time, all of the images remain online on Twitter and Midjourney had no comment, but the community guidelines say that “images or text art that are inherently disrespectful, harassing or abusive is prohibited.”
Also, it’s worth remembering that Higgins flagged the images as fake in his first tweet, so this could work in his defense to Twitter.