Vancouver Police Department faces backlash after posting AI-edited photo of drug bust

Cops Caught Using AI to Edit Picture of Pathetic Drug Bust

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech After giddy business executives, cops are emerging as some of the AI industry's most devoted disciples. Police officers are increasingly using AI-integrated tools on the job, though not without courting significant controversy. The error-prone nature of large language models has left law enforcement operations in a scramble, resulting in hallucinated police reports, evidence fabricated with generative AI, and even incidents of stalking via AI-integrated surveillance cameras. The most recent example comes out of Vancouver, where police set off a firestorm after publishing an image of a drug bust labeled "made with AI" on X-formerly-Twitter. According to Canada's CTV News, the original image depicted an unimpressive haul of petty cash and dime-bag quantities of various drugs. At a glance, nothing in the image seems doctored as the "made with AI" label seems to suggest. On closer look, however, the spread of dollar bills clearly show $50 bills labeled as $20s, while a $100 bill reads as "00." Asked by CTV why they used AI to manipulate the image, Vancouver's sergeant Adam Donalson wrote that "we used software to edit out the names of the accused" -- a confusing response, given that the original image showed the contraband arranged on a plank of cardboard and labeled with sharpie. If Vancouver PD meant to publicize their paltry spread online, why include the names of the accused in the first place? Donalson further explained that the AI picture "has been taken down and replaced with the original photo that has been cropped to exclude the names of the accused," making the whole situation even more convoluted. Given that other cops have used AI images to falsify evidence like this, Vancouverites weren't thrilled to see their own police toying around with the tech, even if just to crop an image. "You showed an AI-generated image of fabricated evidence to the public, which includes potential jurors," one netizen fumed under the updated image. "This whole case is going to get thrown out." "Where's the AI photo you posted earlier?" another poster replied. "I like being lied to by the police, it's good for building trust!"

Vancouver Police Just Swapped Their AI-Edited Drug Bust Photos For New Ones, But The Skepticism Refuses To Die

If you are using AI to embellish your physical achievements, do make sure that you edit out the "made with AI" label, lest you appear hopelessly tech-illiterate. That's a lesson that Vancouver Police Department can now learn at its leisure following a scathing public backlash on one of its most recent AI-related antics. You can now add Vancouver PD to the list of entities that are using AI Slop to artificially enhance their achievements A few days back, Vancouver PD posted pictures of a supposed drug bust on various social media platforms. The pictures were notable not only due to the meagre stash of drugs on display but also because of a "made with AI" label that the department presumably forgot to remove, sparking a fierce public backlash. The department then issued a weird defense, conceding that "software" was used to "edit out the names of the accused." Interestingly, it was patently obvious at the time that much more was edited, especially as a few $50 bills were labelled as $20 ones in the original images. The Vancouver Police Department has now issued fresh images after deleting older ones. While these images do not contain the "made with AI" label, skepticism persists. Of course, it is not just the Police that is now apparently going big on AI slop. We reported recently that marketers were also doubling down on artificial intelligence, but with just 26 percent of the consumers surveyed showing any enthusiasm towards such content. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.