TTG Plus > FAQs > More on FAQ #310

  • 1. In the age of digital manipulation and AI-generated images, wouldn’t it be simpler for everyone to just not trust any image that looks like a photograph?

    Simpler, yes. Realistic, no.

    For example, it would be unrealistic to expect large numbers of sane people to not “trust” most photographs that they themselves take.

    (They know their photographs are not reality, and they know their photographs are subjective, but they still trust them.)

    But it’s not just their own photographs that most people trust.

    For example, most people “trust” the resulting images when dozens of news photographers from around the world each take (and publish separately, each in their own part of the world)...

    . . . almost identical (albeit bland) photographs of the same scene, like the obligatory group shot at a summit of world leaders.

  • 2. How people tend to bestow trust

    Rather than not trusting any images at all, most members of the public seem to have their own “go-to” sources that they trust for news and images.

    Many people who say that they don’t trust “any” content providers seem to mean that they don’t fully trust any providers, but by relying on multiple sources for information, they are content with the picture they get of what is going on (especially when they see multiple news sources they trust publishing the same photos of big events).

    People’s trusted sources can change over time; how image-providers deal with the forthcoming surge in deepfakes and plaigis may become a defining moment for many. (Setting up a TOZ can help.)

  • 3. Most of the time it’s a sliding scale

    Trust often seems to not be a “yes-or-no” type of thing. Levels of “trust” typically appear to be on a continuum or spectrum, and viewers seem to have different degrees of trust about different photographs.

    Most sane people are always going to trust some photographs, starting with

    • photos that they themselves take

    — and then, decreasing in levels of trust as it winds out from there:

    • • photographs taken in their presence by a friend or family member standing next to them; then

    • • • photographs taken by others, in their presence, of the same scene at the same time; then

    • • • • photographs taken by others of similar scenes at different times,

    and so on.

    Along that spectrum of decreasing trust are “photos from one’s most-trusted news source” (which usually get the highest level of trust bestowed on photos that are taken outside of one’s presence by people one doesn’t know)...

    . . . extending all the way down the trust ladder to “laughably implausible photos posted anonymously on the Internet” (probably the lowest rung in terms of trustworthiness if not amusement).

  • 4. “Skepticism” is not a problem; total dismissiveness would be

    TTG actually exists because of ever-increasing public skepticism about visual images: a healthy skepticism about impressive images that look like photographs is completely natural.

    But no society could survive very long if no one trusted any of its most “universal language” any time.