Maine Agency Apologizes for Using AI to Edit Evidence Photo Posted on Facebook

A Maine police department is being criticized for reportedly using an artificial intelligence tool to edit a photo that was posted on social media of evidence seized during a drug operation.

The original photo of the drug evidence.

Credit:

Westbrook PD/Facebook

The Westbrook Police Department said in a Facebook statement that the officer used “a photoshop app” to add the agency’s patch into the original image. An agency spokesperson told local media that the tool used to edit the photo was the artificial intelligence product ChatGPT.

When the edited photo was posted on Facebook, viewers realized that it was AI.

Image of the drug evidence seized by the Westbrook Police that has been edited with ChatGPT.

Credit:

Westbrook PD/Facebook

The Westbrook PD explained the incident in a Facebook statement. “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,” the statement says.

Westbrook PD concluded its statement with an apology and said it had learned a “valuable lesson” from the public’s response to the edited image.

The apology includes this statement. “We apologize for this oversight. 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.”