8 ms·

Amnesty International criticised for using AI-generated images

102 points by johnyzee 3y ago

johnyzee 3y ago
Twitter post with the images (the original postings were removed by Amnesty International): https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1652679528660049920%7Ctwgr%5E4d7b8a586c821189f9d68446d48ba3f726def860%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Famnesty-nixes-ai-generated-images-of-colombian-protests-after-criticism https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920?ref... The captions make them worse somehow. Like the images are supposed to underscore the point, but then they're fake? Such a weird choice all around by Amnesty International.
- bawolff 3y ago
  The first one seems problematic. The second two seem more obviously not real, and more akin to someone drawing an illustration imo.
- Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
  Without all those tracking params https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 and a nitter instance https://nitter.1d4.us/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 https://nitter.1d4.us/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 Also > insulted women The highest crime! [EDIT] Archive of guardian link https://archive.is/4RSIb https://archive.is/4RSIb
  - vuln 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - _wolfie_ 3y ago
      I would think no. Even inside each single country, it is problematic to reach a generally accepted definition. Internationally it's basically impossible in my opinion.
    - jtbayly 3y ago
      There is no such thing anymore.
    - wtcactus 3y ago
      Yes, for more than 99% of the world's population (including western countries) a woman is "an adult human female".
      - vuln 3y ago
        > "an adult human female" Could you be more specific? It seems that anyone could claim to be _an adult human female_. Is it social, biological, or perhaps a spectrum?
        wtcactus 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - vuln 3y ago
        Since your other reply is flagged I will respond here. Further down the Wikipedia page you will find the following: “In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity.[5][6]”
        wtcactus 3y ago
        Like I already wrote: not to more than 99% of the world's population (including western countries).
        vuln 3y ago
        Where are you getting the data to back this claim?
    - fknorangesite 3y ago
      Don't pick fights.
  - SirSavary 3y ago
    > raped and insulted women Not sure why you're intentionally clipping the full context.
    - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
      Because rape is bad but insults are not.
- e12e 3y ago
  OT, but couldn't help but smirk at the top comment: > I used to donate money every year to AI but will never do in future. Took me a moment to parse AI as Amnesty International...
- throw310822 3y ago
  Frankly I thought worse, based on the only image in the Guardian article. That first one can be mistaken for a real photo; the other two are very clearly illustrations. The caption makes things clear anyway, removing any suspicion of attempted deception. Still, not the best judgement.
prepend 3y ago
This makes me think interns or other low paid, less seasoned staff are writing these articles and opted to just gen up an image rather than have no image, or use an internal image bank or purchase an actual picture or actually have photographers covering the event. Has a definite “only write what I can google” vibe to it and is not acceptable for such a well funded organization.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Maybe this is an attempt to pollute search results to get Amnesty International linked with articles about AI? They've got the same initials.
- camillomiller 3y ago
  I love this theory but to be fair it’s giving the hip tech bro intern too much credit for an unjustified horrible decision.
sylware 3y ago
There is hardly maths or hard science in AI. This is high-school skill, don't be fooled.
jack_riminton 3y ago
Amnesty International seems to morphing from a well respected NGO into a partisan political movement https://www.politico.eu/article/amnesty-ukraine-report-wrong/ https://www.politico.eu/article/amnesty-ukraine-report-wrong...
- easytiger 3y ago
  That ship sailed decades ago, as is the case with thousands of British charities
  - jack_riminton 3y ago
    Interested to hear your thoughts on who else makes the list
    - croisillon 3y ago
      not British but Greenpeace and Amnesty were both charities I reverred growing up, before getting to know them from the inside
    - easytiger 3y ago
      There are unknowable numbers of fake charities amongst the 381723 currently registered, including highly exploitative charities, activists groups masquerading as charities, personal enrichment scams and so on. I can think of many examples. A recent fun one was Ngozi Fulani's (of false allegations of racism) charity Sistah Space. Exposed using only publicly available information as a total grifting sham. Remember Camila Batmanghelidjh? There are god knows how many more like those two. Hope Not Hate - a labour party activist controlled disinformation & propaganda generation entity run as a Ltd funded entirely by a special purpose charity entity bankrolled by people like Sigrid Rowsing. You will note their "work" receives almost not interaction on social media - which is the majority of their raison d'être There are quite literally hundreds of "local" charities in places like Tower Hamlets that don't come close to meeting an normal persons definition of charity. They simply funnel money, often from local councils, to themselves. I've also attempted to report a charity before here in the UK. The CC refused to accept my anonymous info and if my information didn't lead to a prosecution (and had to sign a document to this effect) that i would be prosecuted myself. That was some years ago, so the process may be different. A great many charities raise money in a charity entity, then funnel all that money to a small Ltd controlled by a small number of people. The oversight, and legislation are appalling. There are a number of "charities" in the UK alone claiming to be tackling "long covid". Who knows how many evangelical church scams there are enriching some classic conman preacher.
AraceliHarker 3y ago
Amnesty claims that it used the AI-generated images to protect the protesters, but since they risked their lives to protest in the streets in the first place, will they really thank Amnesty for saving their lives?
- camillomiller 3y ago
  Also what the hell? Just blur their faces if that’s really the point.
  - charlieyu1 3y ago
    Considering what happened in Hong Kong, blurring faces definitely does not protect you from being recognised considering the resources that the government can use.
- whack 3y ago
  Yes they would. One of the protesters even talked about this in the article. > Gareth Sella was blinded in his left eye when a police officer in Bogotá shot him with a rubber bullet at the protests. He argued that hiding the identity of protesters makes sense to protect them from ending up in jail on inflated charges. “As the UN has documented, the state has continued pursuing protesters and more than 100 are in jail, many with disproportionate sentences, such as terrorism, to make an example of them. Hiding our identities seems sensible to me given that two years on we continue living in the fear that we could be jailed at any moment or even that they come after us on the streets,” Sella said. People in first world countries often underestimate just how dangerous political protests are in other parts of the world. It's not just about getting arrested or injured at the event itself, but about being identified and targeted many weeks afterwards. The protesters are certainly willing to risk a lot, but they are taking every step possible to not martyr themselves.
muhehe 3y ago
Honestly... those images are openly marked as generated. I don't see too much trouble with this. If they tried to pretend they're real, that would be totally fucked up, yes.
- psiops 3y ago
  I agree. Two of those look (to me) more like illustrations than photographs anyway, so I see no problem with AI using AI for them.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Hum... They should have made the caption larger. And everything around it would be better if they made them a sketch or any kind of impressionist transformation. But yeah, it's a hole bunch of nothing here. Nobody was lying or trying to mislead.
elashri 3y ago
I wonder why they would opt to use fake generated images while real suffering in the world on these issues is very documented in form of horrible images already. Isn't that already enough for them?
- beardyw 3y ago
  Their concern is to not put the people in the photos at risk of recriminations. It seems to me that if this were an illustration by an artist no one would care. So it seems to me they should just use "in the style of".
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
The excuse is partially egregious, as if the mosaic filter doesn't exist. Can't shake the feeling the marketing team just didn't find any of the real images powerful enough. Probably had a bad conversion rate to donations in the focus group. Surely a non-profit like this their number 1 priority should be accuracy and truth in the harm/crimes they are reporting. But nah its not about any of that is it.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  Non-profits have strong incentives to be greedy. Thay the money goes to employees rather than shareholders is at least as motivating.
- PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  > Surely a non-profit like this their number 1 priority should be accuracy and truth I know a number of people in the non-profit space. Some acquire a belief that the end justifies the means, and therefore it’s okay to push the ethical limits as long as it’s for a good cause. They believe their own cause is good, naturally, so fundraising pushes can become a slippery slope of bending the rules.
- jskrablin 3y ago
  Amnesty International accused Ukrainian armed forces of endangering Ukrainian civilians with their defense tactics. And then they (A.I.) covered up the report that found significant problems with their reasoning. So... no, they aren't very concerned with accuracy or truth. https://eeditionnytimes.pressreader.com/article/281814288181263 https://eeditionnytimes.pressreader.com/article/281814288181...
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    You should see how long their Wikipedia page about controversies involving them is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International#Criticis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_Internati...
boredumb 3y ago
Of all the silly outcomes from recent AI development I was predicting, human rights organizations using fake AI generated images of injustice to manufacture emotionally driven support for them wasn't on the list. Excited to watch the next riots in the US be sparked from an AI generated video of _Racism_.
- amtamt 3y ago
  It is not silly. It feels almost criminal. And kind of confirms everything is just business now a days...
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    You should watch Poverty Inc.. It's a 2014 documentary about the big business of... fighting poverty; which ironically would go out of business if poverty ceased. I don't agree with all the statements or conclusions but it's still eye-opening and dystopian.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  I was honestly expecting AI generated porn to be a bigger thing right now. But I guess it’s still early.
  - vuln 3y ago
    I’m sure when the times comes there will be a _sex workers union_ lobbying for regulations on AI porn due to the loss of jobs. It’s already happening with the writers guild…
    - gjsman-1000 3y ago
      > I’m sure when the times comes there will be a _sex workers union_ lobbying for regulations on AI porn due to the loss of jobs. Porn already, for 95%+ of performers, pays terribly. Maybe one or two grand at best per "job" due to rampant piracy, ad-blocking, and the fact that nobody wants it on their credit card statement, and not everyone wants to figure out Bitcoin. They hardly have the capital to start a union, or pay dues. But if AI porn takes off, those earnings will turn porn into purely a "because you want to" business. Probably not a bad thing considering the exploitative aspect in my opinion.
KingOfCoders 3y ago
If the core of your product is trust, to get donations for you doing the right thing, it is mind boggling you would use AI-generated images.
whack 3y ago
I once volunteered as a special advocate for foster children, and went through 3 months of training. During training, I saw numerous PR/awareness/fundraising posters about the work that the organization was doing. Given that this was a program focused on foster-children, the posters featured numerous children. At the end of the training, I was told that for privacy reasons, pictures should never ever be posted publicly (social media etc) of any foster child that identifies them as a foster child. Notably, this policy applied even to the organization's own posters. Not a single child in their poster is a foster child - that would have violated their privacy policy. The children in all their posters are just random kids. We all laughed when we learnt this, but didn't think it was a big deal. Their privacy policy makes a ton of sense - if I was a foster child, I wouldn't want that to be advertised publicly. And the organization would have hamstrung itself if none of their posters featured any children. People don't donate or volunteer based on facts and logic. They do it based on empathy. Not having children's pictures at all, or only blurred photos, would be disastrous for fundraising and getting the foster children their much needed resources. To be clear, I do not endorse lying at all. Lying makes things much worse in the long run. But the above non-profit wasn't lying in any sense. They simply showed photos of average looking kids in neutral settings, displaying neutral expressions. There was no misinformation in any of their photos. I haven't met a single donor to date who felt lied to or betrayed by their posters. I can see the parallels between what Amnesty Intl did and the above. They have a very credible reason for not using real photos. The people protesting themselves have requested hiding their identities to avoid life-changing persecution. And Amnesty states that they explicitly labelled their images as having been produced by AI. They have clearly been acting in good faith. In an ideal world, non-profits wouldn't need to rely on AI generated images... and people wouldn't require pictures to mobilize and get involved. But let's be realistic - there's minimal rationality in people's engagement with non-profits. I skim through the news everyday, and didn't even know there were protests happening in Colombia. The only possible way for organizations like Amnesty International to get their message out there is by using attention-grabbing images. And as long as they make a good faith effort to portray them realistically and label their images as AI-generated, I don't have a problem with it. > To avoid misleading the public, the images included text stating that they were produced by AI. > Gareth Sella was blinded in his left eye when a police officer in Bogotá shot him with a rubber bullet at the protests. He argued that hiding the identity of protesters makes sense to protect them from ending up in jail on inflated charges. “As the UN has documented, the state has continued pursuing protesters and more than 100 are in jail, many with disproportionate sentences, such as terrorism, to make an example of them. Hiding our identities seems sensible to me given that two years on we continue living in the fear that we could be jailed at any moment or even that they come after us on the streets,” Sella said.
jrochkind1 3y ago
I can't imagine how anyone working for Amnesty International could not have realized what a terrible idea this is. It makes me lose a lot of respect for the organization, such bad judgement.
jl2718 3y ago
A good rule of thumb is that people or institutions fabricate evidence because they are making claims that are both false and harmful. Another good rule of thumb is that the evidence which is proven to be fabricated is not the only evidence that was fabricated, and not the only situation in which it was. We rely a great deal on “appeal to authority”, this organization being one of them. The epistemology of a lot of common belief breaks down very quickly once you start to see this. But if it goes too far, once the broken belief system affects the identity of the beholder, it reverts to blind faith and anger. We have a lot of Tooth Faries forced into our collective identity by school teachers.
- iudqnolq 3y ago
  An unfortunate corollary is the ability of an organization to poison a shared well. I have a lot of sympathy for the local folks in dangerous situations who took real risks to contribute to Amnesty reports. Amnesty's actions unfairly devalue their work.
- bawolff 3y ago
  > A good rule of thumb is that people or institutions fabricate evidence because they are making claims that are both false and harmful. Another good rule of thumb is to assume stupidity not malice. Ultimately rules of thumbs are just that, and shouldn't be over relied on for things that matter.
frankreyes 3y ago
Amnesty International requested the freedom of a criminal who stole millions of dollars from poor people, originally meant for social housing. Milagros Sala, found guilty. That organization is a joke.
gjsman-1000 3y ago
I lost respect from Amnesty International after they denounced the President of El Salvador for the mass arrests and detention of gang members. They said they were guilty of "massive human rights violations" and said the president "engulf[ed] the country in a human rights crisis." Which... sure, there might be human rights violations, I don't necessarily doubt there are innocent people caught in the crossfire. However, what they don't mention was that El Salvador had a murder rate as high as 103 per 100K in 2015, the highest murder rate in the world by country by almost double the next highest. Is that not a human rights crisis worth mentioning? It was so bad that BBC reporters were seeing dead bodies in the streets. After the crackdowns (and, if you watch El Salvador's video, easily 90%+ of prisoners in their TCC have visible gang tattoos on them), they are now sitting at a murder rate of 8 per 100K. Not surprisingly, the president has a 90%+ approval rate. That's what I don't get Amnesty International. From 103 to 8 per 100K. Thousands and thousands of lives will be saved every year. Is that worth the risk of a some innocent people with obvious gang tattoos being swept up in it? I'd say... yes, because we don't live in a perfect world, and El Salvador was quite literally in a state of war. But Amnesty International is more focused on their story than the people who obtained freedom from having to live in one of the most dangerous countries on earth. Think only about potential innocent victims in prison, but the 6,500 people who were murdered in a single year shouldn't be considered victims in the equation. I think it's pretty reasonable to say that, if there is a crackdown that arrests 60,000 (alleged) gang members, and has (let's say, hypothetically) 5,000 people innocent arrested (which, from the video, I think is high, but let's just say), but results in over 6,500+ lives saved every year (let alone countless rapes including of children and other crimes), there's a just cause. I would have had much more respect for them, and I think the people of El Salvador would have had more respect for them, if they had accepted the crackdowns as a necessary evil under desperate circumstances; and then worked to identify and free anyone incorrectly swept up in the arrests. They could have done that - they could have started working hard to free the actually innocent, on a case-by-case basis. Instead they just denounced the whole thing... which, surprise, hasn't done anything. It definitely makes them feel good, even if it does literally nothing.
- detaro 3y ago
  It seems kinda obvious why a human rights organization isn't signing up for your "but is it really so bad if we ignore the human rights of people we say are criminals? What's a little torture if its criminals?" line, but instead calls out human rights violations.
mock-possum 3y ago
Okay but > To avoid misleading the public, the images included text stating that they were produced by AI. So doesn’t this really only impact the people… careless enough not to RTFA? And then we get this hackneyed parting shot, parroting common myth/misconception about AI generated images: > AI-generated images stitch together photographs previously taken by humans to create new ones… Which, no, that makes it sounds like a collage, > …raising questions of plagiarism and in photojournalism and the industry’s future. Torres said Amnesty’s use of AI images was an insult to the photojournalists who cover protests from the frontline. “Won’t someone please think of the photojournalists!” I am not impressed with this article.

102 points by johnyzee 3y ago

Twitter post with the images (the original postings were removed by Amnesty International): https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1652679528660049920%7Ctwgr%5E4d7b8a586c821189f9d68446d48ba3f726def860%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Famnesty-nixes-ai-generated-images-of-colombian-protests-after-criticism https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920?ref... The captions make them worse somehow. Like the images are supposed to underscore the point, but then they're fake? Such a weird choice all around by Amnesty International.

bawolff 3y ago
The first one seems problematic. The second two seem more obviously not real, and more akin to someone drawing an illustration imo.
Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
Without all those tracking params https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 https://twitter.com/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 and a nitter instance https://nitter.1d4.us/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 https://nitter.1d4.us/shahselbe/status/1652679528660049920 Also > insulted women The highest crime! [EDIT] Archive of guardian link https://archive.is/4RSIb https://archive.is/4RSIb
- vuln 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - _wolfie_ 3y ago
    I would think no. Even inside each single country, it is problematic to reach a generally accepted definition. Internationally it's basically impossible in my opinion.
  - jtbayly 3y ago
    There is no such thing anymore.
  - wtcactus 3y ago
    Yes, for more than 99% of the world's population (including western countries) a woman is "an adult human female".
    - vuln 3y ago
      > "an adult human female" Could you be more specific? It seems that anyone could claim to be _an adult human female_. Is it social, biological, or perhaps a spectrum?
      - wtcactus 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - vuln 3y ago
      Since your other reply is flagged I will respond here. Further down the Wikipedia page you will find the following: “In humans, the word female can also be used to refer to gender in the social sense of gender role or gender identity.[5][6]”
      - wtcactus 3y ago
        Like I already wrote: not to more than 99% of the world's population (including western countries).
        vuln 3y ago
        Where are you getting the data to back this claim?
  - fknorangesite 3y ago
    Don't pick fights.
- SirSavary 3y ago
  > raped and insulted women Not sure why you're intentionally clipping the full context.
  - Am4TIfIsER0ppos 3y ago
    Because rape is bad but insults are not.
e12e 3y ago
OT, but couldn't help but smirk at the top comment: > I used to donate money every year to AI but will never do in future. Took me a moment to parse AI as Amnesty International...
throw310822 3y ago
Frankly I thought worse, based on the only image in the Guardian article. That first one can be mistaken for a real photo; the other two are very clearly illustrations. The caption makes things clear anyway, removing any suspicion of attempted deception. Still, not the best judgement.

prepend 3y ago

This makes me think interns or other low paid, less seasoned staff are writing these articles and opted to just gen up an image rather than have no image, or use an internal image bank or purchase an actual picture or actually have photographers covering the event. Has a definite “only write what I can google” vibe to it and is not acceptable for such a well funded organization.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

Maybe this is an attempt to pollute search results to get Amnesty International linked with articles about AI? They've got the same initials.

camillomiller 3y ago
I love this theory but to be fair it’s giving the hip tech bro intern too much credit for an unjustified horrible decision.

sylware 3y ago

There is hardly maths or hard science in AI. This is high-school skill, don't be fooled.

jack_riminton 3y ago

Amnesty International seems to morphing from a well respected NGO into a partisan political movement https://www.politico.eu/article/amnesty-ukraine-report-wrong/ https://www.politico.eu/article/amnesty-ukraine-report-wrong...

easytiger 3y ago
That ship sailed decades ago, as is the case with thousands of British charities
- jack_riminton 3y ago
  Interested to hear your thoughts on who else makes the list
  - croisillon 3y ago
    not British but Greenpeace and Amnesty were both charities I reverred growing up, before getting to know them from the inside
  - easytiger 3y ago
    There are unknowable numbers of fake charities amongst the 381723 currently registered, including highly exploitative charities, activists groups masquerading as charities, personal enrichment scams and so on. I can think of many examples. A recent fun one was Ngozi Fulani's (of false allegations of racism) charity Sistah Space. Exposed using only publicly available information as a total grifting sham. Remember Camila Batmanghelidjh? There are god knows how many more like those two. Hope Not Hate - a labour party activist controlled disinformation & propaganda generation entity run as a Ltd funded entirely by a special purpose charity entity bankrolled by people like Sigrid Rowsing. You will note their "work" receives almost not interaction on social media - which is the majority of their raison d'être There are quite literally hundreds of "local" charities in places like Tower Hamlets that don't come close to meeting an normal persons definition of charity. They simply funnel money, often from local councils, to themselves. I've also attempted to report a charity before here in the UK. The CC refused to accept my anonymous info and if my information didn't lead to a prosecution (and had to sign a document to this effect) that i would be prosecuted myself. That was some years ago, so the process may be different. A great many charities raise money in a charity entity, then funnel all that money to a small Ltd controlled by a small number of people. The oversight, and legislation are appalling. There are a number of "charities" in the UK alone claiming to be tackling "long covid". Who knows how many evangelical church scams there are enriching some classic conman preacher.

AraceliHarker 3y ago

Amnesty claims that it used the AI-generated images to protect the protesters, but since they risked their lives to protest in the streets in the first place, will they really thank Amnesty for saving their lives?

camillomiller 3y ago
Also what the hell? Just blur their faces if that’s really the point.
- charlieyu1 3y ago
  Considering what happened in Hong Kong, blurring faces definitely does not protect you from being recognised considering the resources that the government can use.
whack 3y ago
Yes they would. One of the protesters even talked about this in the article. > Gareth Sella was blinded in his left eye when a police officer in Bogotá shot him with a rubber bullet at the protests. He argued that hiding the identity of protesters makes sense to protect them from ending up in jail on inflated charges. “As the UN has documented, the state has continued pursuing protesters and more than 100 are in jail, many with disproportionate sentences, such as terrorism, to make an example of them. Hiding our identities seems sensible to me given that two years on we continue living in the fear that we could be jailed at any moment or even that they come after us on the streets,” Sella said. People in first world countries often underestimate just how dangerous political protests are in other parts of the world. It's not just about getting arrested or injured at the event itself, but about being identified and targeted many weeks afterwards. The protesters are certainly willing to risk a lot, but they are taking every step possible to not martyr themselves.

muhehe 3y ago

Honestly... those images are openly marked as generated. I don't see too much trouble with this. If they tried to pretend they're real, that would be totally fucked up, yes.

psiops 3y ago
I agree. Two of those look (to me) more like illustrations than photographs anyway, so I see no problem with AI using AI for them.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Hum... They should have made the caption larger. And everything around it would be better if they made them a sketch or any kind of impressionist transformation. But yeah, it's a hole bunch of nothing here. Nobody was lying or trying to mislead.

elashri 3y ago

I wonder why they would opt to use fake generated images while real suffering in the world on these issues is very documented in form of horrible images already. Isn't that already enough for them?

beardyw 3y ago
Their concern is to not put the people in the photos at risk of recriminations. It seems to me that if this were an illustration by an artist no one would care. So it seems to me they should just use "in the style of".

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

The excuse is partially egregious, as if the mosaic filter doesn't exist. Can't shake the feeling the marketing team just didn't find any of the real images powerful enough. Probably had a bad conversion rate to donations in the focus group. Surely a non-profit like this their number 1 priority should be accuracy and truth in the harm/crimes they are reporting. But nah its not about any of that is it.

BurningFrog 3y ago
Non-profits have strong incentives to be greedy. Thay the money goes to employees rather than shareholders is at least as motivating.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
> Surely a non-profit like this their number 1 priority should be accuracy and truth I know a number of people in the non-profit space. Some acquire a belief that the end justifies the means, and therefore it’s okay to push the ethical limits as long as it’s for a good cause. They believe their own cause is good, naturally, so fundraising pushes can become a slippery slope of bending the rules.
jskrablin 3y ago
Amnesty International accused Ukrainian armed forces of endangering Ukrainian civilians with their defense tactics. And then they (A.I.) covered up the report that found significant problems with their reasoning. So... no, they aren't very concerned with accuracy or truth. https://eeditionnytimes.pressreader.com/article/281814288181263 https://eeditionnytimes.pressreader.com/article/281814288181...
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  You should see how long their Wikipedia page about controversies involving them is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International#Criticism_and_controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesty_International#Criticis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Amnesty_Internati...

boredumb 3y ago

Of all the silly outcomes from recent AI development I was predicting, human rights organizations using fake AI generated images of injustice to manufacture emotionally driven support for them wasn't on the list. Excited to watch the next riots in the US be sparked from an AI generated video of _Racism_.

amtamt 3y ago
It is not silly. It feels almost criminal. And kind of confirms everything is just business now a days...
- gjsman-1000 3y ago
  You should watch Poverty Inc.. It's a 2014 documentary about the big business of... fighting poverty; which ironically would go out of business if poverty ceased. I don't agree with all the statements or conclusions but it's still eye-opening and dystopian.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
I was honestly expecting AI generated porn to be a bigger thing right now. But I guess it’s still early.
- vuln 3y ago
  I’m sure when the times comes there will be a _sex workers union_ lobbying for regulations on AI porn due to the loss of jobs. It’s already happening with the writers guild…
  - gjsman-1000 3y ago
    > I’m sure when the times comes there will be a _sex workers union_ lobbying for regulations on AI porn due to the loss of jobs. Porn already, for 95%+ of performers, pays terribly. Maybe one or two grand at best per "job" due to rampant piracy, ad-blocking, and the fact that nobody wants it on their credit card statement, and not everyone wants to figure out Bitcoin. They hardly have the capital to start a union, or pay dues. But if AI porn takes off, those earnings will turn porn into purely a "because you want to" business. Probably not a bad thing considering the exploitative aspect in my opinion.

KingOfCoders 3y ago

If the core of your product is trust, to get donations for you doing the right thing, it is mind boggling you would use AI-generated images.

whack 3y ago

I once volunteered as a special advocate for foster children, and went through 3 months of training. During training, I saw numerous PR/awareness/fundraising posters about the work that the organization was doing. Given that this was a program focused on foster-children, the posters featured numerous children. At the end of the training, I was told that for privacy reasons, pictures should never ever be posted publicly (social media etc) of any foster child that identifies them as a foster child. Notably, this policy applied even to the organization's own posters. Not a single child in their poster is a foster child - that would have violated their privacy policy. The children in all their posters are just random kids. We all laughed when we learnt this, but didn't think it was a big deal. Their privacy policy makes a ton of sense - if I was a foster child, I wouldn't want that to be advertised publicly. And the organization would have hamstrung itself if none of their posters featured any children. People don't donate or volunteer based on facts and logic. They do it based on empathy. Not having children's pictures at all, or only blurred photos, would be disastrous for fundraising and getting the foster children their much needed resources. To be clear, I do not endorse lying at all. Lying makes things much worse in the long run. But the above non-profit wasn't lying in any sense. They simply showed photos of average looking kids in neutral settings, displaying neutral expressions. There was no misinformation in any of their photos. I haven't met a single donor to date who felt lied to or betrayed by their posters. I can see the parallels between what Amnesty Intl did and the above. They have a very credible reason for not using real photos. The people protesting themselves have requested hiding their identities to avoid life-changing persecution. And Amnesty states that they explicitly labelled their images as having been produced by AI. They have clearly been acting in good faith. In an ideal world, non-profits wouldn't need to rely on AI generated images... and people wouldn't require pictures to mobilize and get involved. But let's be realistic - there's minimal rationality in people's engagement with non-profits. I skim through the news everyday, and didn't even know there were protests happening in Colombia. The only possible way for organizations like Amnesty International to get their message out there is by using attention-grabbing images. And as long as they make a good faith effort to portray them realistically and label their images as AI-generated, I don't have a problem with it. > To avoid misleading the public, the images included text stating that they were produced by AI. > Gareth Sella was blinded in his left eye when a police officer in Bogotá shot him with a rubber bullet at the protests. He argued that hiding the identity of protesters makes sense to protect them from ending up in jail on inflated charges. “As the UN has documented, the state has continued pursuing protesters and more than 100 are in jail, many with disproportionate sentences, such as terrorism, to make an example of them. Hiding our identities seems sensible to me given that two years on we continue living in the fear that we could be jailed at any moment or even that they come after us on the streets,” Sella said.

jrochkind1 3y ago

I can't imagine how anyone working for Amnesty International could not have realized what a terrible idea this is. It makes me lose a lot of respect for the organization, such bad judgement.

jl2718 3y ago

A good rule of thumb is that people or institutions fabricate evidence because they are making claims that are both false and harmful. Another good rule of thumb is that the evidence which is proven to be fabricated is not the only evidence that was fabricated, and not the only situation in which it was. We rely a great deal on “appeal to authority”, this organization being one of them. The epistemology of a lot of common belief breaks down very quickly once you start to see this. But if it goes too far, once the broken belief system affects the identity of the beholder, it reverts to blind faith and anger. We have a lot of Tooth Faries forced into our collective identity by school teachers.

iudqnolq 3y ago
An unfortunate corollary is the ability of an organization to poison a shared well. I have a lot of sympathy for the local folks in dangerous situations who took real risks to contribute to Amnesty reports. Amnesty's actions unfairly devalue their work.
bawolff 3y ago
> A good rule of thumb is that people or institutions fabricate evidence because they are making claims that are both false and harmful. Another good rule of thumb is to assume stupidity not malice. Ultimately rules of thumbs are just that, and shouldn't be over relied on for things that matter.

frankreyes 3y ago

Amnesty International requested the freedom of a criminal who stole millions of dollars from poor people, originally meant for social housing. Milagros Sala, found guilty. That organization is a joke.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

I lost respect from Amnesty International after they denounced the President of El Salvador for the mass arrests and detention of gang members. They said they were guilty of "massive human rights violations" and said the president "engulf[ed] the country in a human rights crisis." Which... sure, there might be human rights violations, I don't necessarily doubt there are innocent people caught in the crossfire. However, what they don't mention was that El Salvador had a murder rate as high as 103 per 100K in 2015, the highest murder rate in the world by country by almost double the next highest. Is that not a human rights crisis worth mentioning? It was so bad that BBC reporters were seeing dead bodies in the streets. After the crackdowns (and, if you watch El Salvador's video, easily 90%+ of prisoners in their TCC have visible gang tattoos on them), they are now sitting at a murder rate of 8 per 100K. Not surprisingly, the president has a 90%+ approval rate. That's what I don't get Amnesty International. From 103 to 8 per 100K. Thousands and thousands of lives will be saved every year. Is that worth the risk of a some innocent people with obvious gang tattoos being swept up in it? I'd say... yes, because we don't live in a perfect world, and El Salvador was quite literally in a state of war. But Amnesty International is more focused on their story than the people who obtained freedom from having to live in one of the most dangerous countries on earth. Think only about potential innocent victims in prison, but the 6,500 people who were murdered in a single year shouldn't be considered victims in the equation. I think it's pretty reasonable to say that, if there is a crackdown that arrests 60,000 (alleged) gang members, and has (let's say, hypothetically) 5,000 people innocent arrested (which, from the video, I think is high, but let's just say), but results in over 6,500+ lives saved every year (let alone countless rapes including of children and other crimes), there's a just cause. I would have had much more respect for them, and I think the people of El Salvador would have had more respect for them, if they had accepted the crackdowns as a necessary evil under desperate circumstances; and then worked to identify and free anyone incorrectly swept up in the arrests. They could have done that - they could have started working hard to free the actually innocent, on a case-by-case basis. Instead they just denounced the whole thing... which, surprise, hasn't done anything. It definitely makes them feel good, even if it does literally nothing.

detaro 3y ago
It seems kinda obvious why a human rights organization isn't signing up for your "but is it really so bad if we ignore the human rights of people we say are criminals? What's a little torture if its criminals?" line, but instead calls out human rights violations.

mock-possum 3y ago

Okay but > To avoid misleading the public, the images included text stating that they were produced by AI. So doesn’t this really only impact the people… careless enough not to RTFA? And then we get this hackneyed parting shot, parroting common myth/misconception about AI generated images: > AI-generated images stitch together photographs previously taken by humans to create new ones… Which, no, that makes it sounds like a collage, > …raising questions of plagiarism and in photojournalism and the industry’s future. Torres said Amnesty’s use of AI images was an insult to the photojournalists who cover protests from the frontline. “Won’t someone please think of the photojournalists!” I am not impressed with this article.