Photographs Of Pope Francis Admitted To Be AI Fakes

The below image is an AI image generated by Pablo Xavier using Midjourney.

Photographs Of Pope Francis Admitted To Be Digital Fakes. (Image is an AI image generated by Pablo Xavier using Midjourney.)Photo byPablo Xavier

By now, you may have already seen this picture. A photograph of the Pope wearing [what appears to be] a white designer puffer jacket has gone viral – only it wasn’t real. The image of Pope Francis was created last weekend by a construction worker, Pablo Xavier, who wanted to create a ‘trippy’ image of the Pope – and it lit up the internet.

Pablo told Buzzfeed that he was, for lack of a better term, 'altering his state of mind after eating an edible fungus...' when he came up with the idea to create this depiction of the Pope.

“I’m trying to figure out ways to make something funny because that’s what I usually try to do. I try to do funny stuff or trippy art — psychedelic stuff. It just dawned on me: I should do the Pope. Then it was just coming like water: ‘The Pope in Balenciaga puffy coat, Moncler, walking the streets of Rome, Paris,’ stuff like that.” – Pablo Xavier

The image was created with an AI program called Midjourney.

While the image is entirely fake, some people thought it was real (it was quite convincing,) and it provoked people to make jokes about the Catholic Church’s spending habits.

Here’s the scary part: people thought it was real. While it was an innocent joke (and kind of funny) you have to wonder how many more fake images are circulating. As technology improves, these types of images will only become more convincing.

In real news, Pope Francis was recently hospitalized with a respiratory infection. He is reported to be doing well and making a recovery.