A photo of Pope Francis in a down jacket went around the world. There is one problem with it
In recent days, a photo of Pope Francis in a down jacket has become a hit on the Internet. Many Internet users positively joked about the style of the head of the Catholic Church, and few people asked about the authenticity of the photo.
As it turns out, the famous photo of Francis in a down jacket was not taken by human hands. This is an image generated by an artificial intelligence called Midjourney. Since Friday, March 24, the photo has been viewed and commented on by millions of Internet users. Many of them noticed the somewhat comical and at the same time very stylish appearance of the Pope.
Pope Francis in a jacket is the work of AI
The Internet is full of jokes comparing Franciszek to rap stars or making him a model. With the help of artificial intelligence, subsequent incarnations were added to the head of the Church, dressing him in more and more elaborate costumes. However, few people paid attention to the fact that the first photograph was generated by AI.
Midjourney is a program generated by artificial intelligence belonging to an independent research laboratory in San Francisco. The algorithm gives you the ability to create images using only a few input words. In this case, it was probably enough to enter the terms “pope”, “Francis” and “down jacket”, with the optional specification of the fashion house, to achieve a specific result.
Criticism around Francis
Franciszek will definitely benefit from a bit of warming up his image. His statements about the war in Ukraine have been highly controversial for many months. After the criticism he faced, Francis only in October last year called on Vladimir Putin to stop the violence, and in November he stated that the aggression against Ukraine was committed by Russia. At the beginning of the invasion, he suggested that “NATO barking” could have contributed to the outbreak of war.
Two weeks ago, he gave an interview to the Argentine daily “La Nación”, in which questions were asked, among other things, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has been ongoing for a year. The journalist asked Francis whether the massacres committed by Russians in Ukraine could be described as genocide. “That’s certainly a technical word, genocide,” he replied.
– But it is obvious that when schools, hospitals, shelters are bombed, the impression is not so much that the place is being occupied, but that it is being destroyed…. I don’t know if it is genocide or not, it needs to be investigated, it needs to be well defined by people, but it is certainly not the war ethic to which we are accustomed, Francis said at the time.
