Netflix Accused of Using AI Photos in True Crime Documentary

[Shard Shinjuku]

Netflix Accused of Using AI Photos in True Crime Documentary

Misshapen fingers appeared on screen.

petapixel.com

Fans have noticed misshapen hands in What Jennifer Did on Netflix.
Netflix has been accused of using AI-manipulated images in a new true crime documentary What Jennifer Did.

The documentary revolves around Jennifer Pan who was convicted of a kill-for-hire attack on her parents. Around 28 minutes into the documentary, Pan's high school friend Nam Nguyen is described as a "bubbly, happy, confident, and very genuine" person. His words are accompanied by a series of relevant photos.

But upon closer inspection of the images, there are signs of manipulation; one image in particular showing Pan flashing peace signs with both arms appears blatantly manipulated offering evidence that at least some of the image was AI-generated.

On Pan's left hand, she appears to have only two fingers; missing a thumb, a pinky finger, and a ring ringer. On her right hand, she is missing a pinky finger and her thumb appears unnaturally long and disjointed. AI image generators notoriously have a hard time making pictures of human hands.

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[Hollywood Duo]

Just need some random words to determine if it's fake

 

[Arkanim94]

Because of course they did.

 

[Vourlis]

Both hands are fucked. When did retouching become such a lost art?

We have people who fix this shit for a living and had been for decades before ai came in and wrecked the scene.

Hell it's a Major at art schools...you can dedicate your entire degree to making sure this shit doesn't happen. Just...what the fuck...

 

[ezekial45]

I would imagine you'd not want to mess with any images or produce any fakes for True Crime shows. Along with Netflix, A24 is already in hot water with those terrible Civil War AI ads, and i'm sure we're gonna see even more brazen uses of AI while real artists and creatives are struggling right now for work.

These companies don't give a FUCK.

 

[CBZ]

I remember hearing about concerns similar to this with the film Late Night with the Devil. Of course, that film was produced very early into AI being used in media, had it been produced any later I could see them completely removing the offending images. And that film was completely fictional.

If you're going to make a true crime documentary, why on earth would you use AI to recreate supposed photos?

 

[Dyle]

Well they never said it was a true True Crime documentary

 

[Khanimus]

Awaiting the eventual "we only experimented with AI..."

No fucko, this is a completed production. You didn't "experiment," you just used it.

 

[kyle mechlachlan]

Not gonna deny that the fingers are fucked up, but is the assertion that the people that did the documentary fully faked the image?

 

[odiin]

This should truly be a crime.

 

[Draper]

What's the point tho?

 

[stersauce]

I haven't watched it, but the articles I've read on it were saying that the documentary was trying to portray the subject of the film as some fun loving person or something along those lines

true crime nuts love when someone snaps i guess

 

[Shemhazai]

I like how people are just like "it's the hands!" and not the fact that everything behind her is just AI noise that doesn't actually look like anything. Like, what the fuck are those red antennae things behind her? What is anything on the unit she's in front of? The whole image is just nonsense.

 

[davepoobond]

AI Crime

 

[JaseMath]

I like how people are just like "it's the hands!" and not the fact that everything behind her is just AI noise that doesn't actually look like anything. Like, what the fuck are those red antennae things behind her? What is anything on the unit she's in front of? The whole image is just nonsense.

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For real. The hands are obvious but the whole image is fucked.

 

[RyougaSaotome]

I like how people are just like "it's the hands!" and not the fact that everything behind her is just AI noise that doesn't actually look like anything. Like, what the fuck are those red antennae things behind her? What is anything on the unit she's in front of? The whole image is just nonsense.

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Yuuuuup.

It's pretty wild.

 

[Hrodulf]

I already have enough issues with true crime as it is without them using AI to literally make shit up.

 

[Blake the drunk]

i've watched this interrogation on youtube last year, but still watched this out of boredom last night. shit is wild!

 

[Ring Dings and Pepsi]

I already have enough issues with true crime as it is without them using AI to literally make shit up.

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I feel like it's the unfortunate natural extension of true crime media that takes wild liberties with the source material. But to just completely fabricate photos while pretending they're normal documentary material is taking it to another level of depravity.

 

[kurahador]

I've heard this is one of their worst true crime yet, but this AI allegation really takes the cake. You better off just reading wiki about the case than watching this.

 

[rashbeep]

what the fuck

 

[Watchtower]

I like how people are just like "it's the hands!" and not the fact that everything behind her is just AI noise that doesn't actually look like anything. Like, what the fuck are those red antennae things behind her? What is anything on the unit she's in front of? The whole image is just nonsense.

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Not even just "it's the hands!", it's like "Hmm, there seems to be something off with some of the fingers here."

And it's like uhhhh the entire thing is fucked what are you talking about??? 😂

 

[Bengraven]

Don't they pay someone to make the images with AI?

Couldn't they have just paid an actual editor?

 

[Mental Atrophy]

I like how people are just like "it's the hands!" and not the fact that everything behind her is just AI noise that doesn't actually look like anything. Like, what the fuck are those red antennae things behind her? What is anything on the unit she's in front of? The whole image is just nonsense.

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I'm having a hard time telling what's wrong with the background because it's so... not sure what the word is... bright? Washed out? The light overpowers so much of it, either because the lens was open for too long or really powerful flash was used or something. But because of how harsh the contrast is between dark and light, it's hard to call it "nonsense" from what I can make out.

I am not really convinced this is an AI image, but I do think it was filtered/upscaled or similar.

 

[Teenage Fansub]

I'm gonna guess the real images cut off at a point and they want them to fit the whole 16:9 screen, so fake up the rest.

 

[Volimar]

Have you considered that she might just be a cardboard cut out?

 

[Hollywood Duo]

I'm gonna guess the real images cut off at a point and they want them to fit the whole 16:9 screen, so fake up the rest.

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What's the real image? Just her head?

 

[davepoobond]

What's the real image? Just her head?

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the dresser with a framed picture of a melted candle is the original picture

 

[Hollywood Duo]

the dresser with a picture of a framed melted candle is the original picture

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Are we sure that's not a portal to Hades

 

[davepoobond]

Are we sure that's not a portal to Hades

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we ought to zoom in with generative AI and see the half-truth

 

[beat]

Don't they pay someone to make the images with AI?

Couldn't they have just paid an actual editor?

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Couldn't they have used actual photos? It's a documentary. They shouldn't be making anything up without at a minimum, noting that it's a reconstruction or illustration.

I vaguely remember a photojournalist talking about photoshop: adjusting for contrast or cropping are generally fine*, but moving pixels is definitely not. And this is way worse than that.

* obviously not in cases where cropping is used to deceptive effect

 

[Cartwynd]

Should be blacklisted from making docs ever again. If you don't have the footage then film a reenactment or have an artist draw it etc. Those are practices that won't confuse viewers or the historical record.

 

[Griffy]

Unless there's evidence to the contrary, I'd guess that this is more a case of them using AI-assisted upscaling tools like Topaz to increase the resolution of very low-quality source material. Something I've seen for virtually every documentary in recent years that uses source photos or videos. Literally just saw it to increase the quality of old photos and home movies in the National Geographic Photographer show on Disney+ even!

It isn't dissimilar to what Peter Jackson did for the Beatles or WWI docs he did, or the controversial "remasters" of James Cameron's recent 4K releases. It's not AI inventing an image, it's AI trying to guess at and generate detail in a bad image. You could feed in a 250px image and spit out a 4K rendition of it, and you'll get these AI artifacts because the algorithm recognizes that this thing is probably a hand, and this thing is a smile, but there's virtually no detail there because it's like 10 pixels, so "generates" a hand or smile that fits the shape.

Now I don't know at what point this crosses an ethical line, but people should know these AI-assisted tools have existed for years before the current generative AI boom, and are being and have been used in a lot of things.

 

[Horp]

Based on a true photo

 

[Hollywood Duo]

Unless there's evidence to the contrary, I'd guess that this is more a case of them using AI-assisted upscaling tools like Topaz to increase the resolution of very low-quality source material. Something I've seen for virtually every documentary in recent years that uses source photos or videos. Literally just saw it to increase the quality of old photos and home movies in the National Geographic Photographer show on Disney+ even!

It isn't dissimilar to what Peter Jackson did for the Beatles or WWI docs he did, or the controversial "remasters" of James Cameron's recent 4K releases. It's not AI inventing an image, it's AI trying to guess at and generate detail in a bad image. You could feed in a 250px image and spit out a 4K rendition of it, and you'll get these AI artifacts because the algorithm recognizes that this thing is probably a hand, and this thing is a smile, but there's virtually no detail there because it's like 10 pixels, so "generates" a hand or smile that fits the shape.

Now I don't know at what point this crosses an ethical line, but people should know these AI-assisted tools have existed for years before the current generative AI boom, and are being and have been used in a lot of things.

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It's an accusation, they can defend themselves. I'm not holding my breath.

 

[I am a Bird]

How do we know that Jennifer wasn't just related to the Penguin.

 

[I am a Bird]

Well they never said it was a true True Crime documentary

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Based on a true crime documentary.

 

[GoodGrief]

It should be a crime to do this. I know true crime embellishes all the time, but this is making up evidence for a documentary. If the law doesn't step in soon, we'll be living in a world where we won't be able to tell what's true anymore.