Does a photograph shared to X in August 2024 genuinely show Pope Francis wearing a rainbow scarf? No, that's not true: One digital forensics website concluded that the photograph was "99.9% likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content." Another indicated the photo was 96 percent "artificial." The image also contained several artifacts like weird fingers, inconsistent clothing and odd hair that point to it being AI generated.
The photo was shared to X on August 15, 2024 (archived here), without indicating that it was generated by artificial intelligence, suggesting the photo was authentic. A caption with the post read:
What are you thoughts on Pope Francis?
Here is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Thu Aug. 15 10:15:00 2024 UTC)
Distorted characteristics indicate AI generation
There are clear indications that the photo shown above was generated using AI. For one, Francis' hands appear unnatural; the middle finger of his right hand is distorted, while his left hand is backward and seemingly disconnected from his arm.
(Source: Lead Stories compilation Thu Aug 15 17:50:49 2024 UTC)
Secondly, the hair of a person in the background appears to be growing from the side of their head.
(Source: Lead Stories compilation Thu Aug 15 19:13:22 2024 UTC)
The patterns of the scarves worn by the three people in the foreground do not match up, which would likely have been the case if the group were attending the same event. Furthermore, the person on the left is shown with a scarf that has what looks to be a second length attached to it.
(Source: Lead Stories compilation Thu Aug 15 18:05:37 2024 UTC)
Detection tools confirm that the image is likely AI-generated
The AI detection tool Hive Moderation determined that the photo is 99.9 percent "likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content."
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken Thu Aug. 14 18:03:06 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories also ran the photograph through the AI image detector tool Hugging Face, which found that the image is at least 96 percent "artificial."
(Source: Hugging Face screenshot taken Thu Aug. 14 18:11:36 2024 UTC)
No evidence to suggest photo is genuine
The poster of the image provided no information that would allow for further verification of the photograph, such as where or when the purported photo was taken.
Lead Stories conducted three reverse image searches using Google Lens (archived here), Microsoft Bing (archived here) and Yandex (archived here). None returned results that would indicate the photo was either genuine or taken at an event that the pope attended, which undoubtedly would have been covered by major media outlets.
Lead Stories has debunked other claims containing AI-generated content, which can be viewed here. Other Lead Stories fact checks about the pope can be found here.
