Police Department's AI-Edited Drug Bust Photo Sparks Controversy and Raises Concerns

Cops Use ChatGPT to Edit Drugs Bust Photo, Goes Horribly Wrong

A police department in Maine has been tripped up by modern photo editing after it posted an AI-generated image of a drug bust. Westbrook Maine Police Department used ChatGPT to add its insignia to the photo, but officers were unaware that the AI edited the entire image and failed to spot that it had been significantly altered. Followers of the department's Facebook called foul when they noticed garbled text in the image and an unnatural sheen. Westbroke Maine PD usually place a real badge next to a bust but for some reason decided to use ChatGPT instead. After initially denying that the image was AI-generated, the cops realized their error and took down the post, replacing it with an apology. "After taking the photograph, the officer wanted to add in our department patch to identify Westbrook as the arresting agency," Westbrook Maine Police Department writes on Facebook. "To do this, the officer used a photoshop app to insert the department patch. The patch was added, and the photograph with the patch was sent to one of our Facebook administrators, who posted it. "Unbeknownst to anyone, when the app added the patch, it altered the packaging and some of the other attributes on the photograph. None of us caught it or realized it." WGME reports that the "photoshop app" was in fact ChatGPT which primarily functions as a chatbot but also has a powerful AI image generator which users can not only generate images on but also upload their own photos to edit, as seen in the recent Studio Ghibli trend. However, the cops didn't realize that ChatGPT uses the uploaded picture as a prompt to create an AI image, and even though it looks similar to the real photo, it is effectively a novel image. "We apologize for this oversight," the Department says. "It was never our intent to alter the image of the evidence. We never realized that using a photoshop app to add our logo would alter a photograph so substantially." One concerned resident tells WGME that she wonders how much people really understand about AI technology. "The fact that the person who posted it and put it through ChatGPT didn't notice the differences because they were very obvious," says Jessica Wellman. Not only did the AI garble text on the packaging, but it actually removed some of the narcotics from the photo -- making it difficult to understand how no one in the department noticed the error.

Cops Post AI Slop Image Of "Drug Bust," Then Lie and Say It's Real When They're Called Out

AI slop has come for everything -- including those cringey drug bust spreads that clueless cops love to post. As Portland, Maine's WMTW reports, police in the suburban city of Westbrook have apologized after not only posting an obviously AI-generated photo of a purported narcotics seizure, but also lying to the public about it. Over the weekend, the Westbrook Maine Police Department shared on Facebook the sloppy photo that featured, among other glaring AI tells, indecipherable text appearing on a drug scale, medication packet, and weed vape cartridge packages. Soon after the post went up, AI-literate Mainers called it for what it was, prompting the cops to double down and defend the obviously AI image as legit. "We want to set the record straight -- this is NOT an AI-generated photo," the town's PD claimed in a follow-up to the initial post, both of which have since been deleted, per WMTW. "What you see is what was seized by officers during the course of the drug arrests. Is the packaging weird and look like gibberish or a different language? Yes. But that is legitimately what was located and seized by officers." "The packaging is most likely foreign," the cops continued, "and it is possible that whoever made the packaging used AI to make a clearly knock-off package." Within a few days, however, both the initial and followup post had been deleted, and Westbrook PD issued an apology and explanation. In a post featuring the AI-generated photo next to the original for comparison, the cops noted that the arresting officer in the drug bust -- who was not named -- used an AI tool to "add in our department patch." "Unbeknownst to anyone, when the app added the patch, it altered the packaging and some of the other attributes on the photograph," the apology post reads. "None of us caught it or realized it." As one local resident told WGME, another Portland-area news broadcaster, it's pretty shocking that the obviously altered photo was even tampered with in the first place, nevermind that it made it onto the department's Facebook page . "It makes me wonder how much people understand about technology," the concerned citizen said, "and how easy it is to fool people." That last part about ease of deception is, despite the hilarity of watching cops get pie on their faces, particularly salient. In this instance, the alteration was done by someone who clearly didn't know what they were doing, resulting not only in obvious AI tells -- but also, ironically, some of the paraphernalia being removed from the image. Regardless of that AI-ignorant cop being in the wrong, their department doubled down in support -- suggesting that when and if law enforcement gets better at digital evidence tampering, they will likely do the same.