• brucethemoose@lemmy.world
    45·
    10 days ago

    Eyeballing the photo is hopeless.

    If you want to check credibility, do it the old fashion way, before AI existed: Check the source.

    I’ll take a stab.

    OP is: https://old.reddit.com/user/RustySchmeckleford/

    Post history is hidden. And in their entire history, they only have two comments. Weird, but inconclusive.

    Dead end.

    No results on Tineye. The exact image is one day old on Google Images, but it is showing a few visually similar posts. For example:

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/31/a-week-on-the-block-where-alex-pretti-was-killed

    similar wall

    An original photo from The Guardian? Reasonable to assume that’s real. But that’s from Minneapolis.

    Alright… let’s look for clues. What’s NRG Arena?

    An arena in Houston, Texas, as it turns out. Found this on Facebook searching for that text:

    That’s definitely the poster. This is probably some real street corner in Houston. That concert was in 2025, so It’s reasonable to assume the poster survived into 2026.

    And that lets us narrow down the search. For instance, local Houston news posted this:

    https://cw39.com/news/local/houston-ice-agent-shooting/

    https://cw39.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/salgado_araujo_memorial3.jpg

    https://cw39.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/07/salgado_araujo_memorial3.jpg

    CNN posted the original photo the poster is based on. Again, quite credible:

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/07/us/houston-ice-shooting-death

    CNN Photo

    So… is the photo fake?

    Shrug.

    RustySchmeckleford could’ve taken a random 2025 photo, a picture of the poster, and AI’d it onto the wall. It’s impossible to tell.

    But all the components are real.

    I’d argue you’re asking the wrong question. If some rando in the internet posts a picture, AI or no AI you have no idea if it’s real or not. You have to ingest it with that in mind.

    To be blunt: you will never know if it’s AI or not.

    You could dig into the Reddit user or analyze it all you want, you could trace the source of the poster template or pixel peep for artifacts, but fact is this post has zero credibility. That’s true of anything from internet strangers.

    If you want credible, get info from credible source. It’s that simple. /u/RustySchmeckleford/ is not The Guardian.

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
        13·
        10 days ago

        One more thing.

        If you look at the artifacts on the poster, they look replicated. For instance, look at the little mark to the left of his face:

        That, and other hints, are sus.

        …Does that mean it’s AI? Maybe. Maybe they printed that way to give it a “rough” look, or maybe all the posters were in a stack when they got damaged. Or maybe someone asked ChatGPT or Gemini to tessellate this poster across the wall, which has the exact same artifacts:

        img

        Or maybe you can find the original poster JPEG if you keep digging.

        Also, the original image? 6000x4000 pixels, precisely.

        That the exact resolution of 24MP camera sensors (like the Canon R8 or R50), but it’s also something AI could output, too.

        I just don’t want you to misinterpret me: this could absolutely be AI. 100%.

        Could be real. I think its real.

        But you’ll never get an answer, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

        I’m arguing, with all due respect, that your original question of “Is this AI” does not matter, because you can’t trust random posts from strangers anyway. You never could. I’m not trying to be impolite, but that’s intended to be a cold bucket of water in the face.