Nine blames the robots for photoshopping politician’s body

Channel Nine has blamed Photoshop’s new AI tools for an altered graphic used in a nightly news bulletin that gave Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell fake breasts and the type of midriff top last seen on Sporty Spice in the mid-90s  – and Dr. Mumbo completely believes them. The robots are taking over – and they want our pollies in crop tops!

Below are the two images for comparison’s sake.

As you can see, the photo has clearly been altered.

The picture on the right clearly shows Purcell by a body of water, stomach covered by cloth. It was taken for a Bendigo Advertiser feature. The photo on the left, however, shows Purcell in a hellish firescape, all rifles and yelling politicians, ducks poised to attack, bad kerning everywhere.

The vibe from the original photo is “Look at that greenery, and those healthy Victorian waterways. Isn’t nature completely sufficient? No need for robots here. I have no desire to find out what that politician would look like in a crop top.”

The vibe from the photoshopped version, however: “Nature has forsaken us. The ducks are burning. The sky is burning. Fashion is fleeting, yet cyclical. I wish artificial intelligence could get us out of this mess we stupid humans have made for ourselves.”

The agenda is clear.

Here’s the official excuse for the photo, by the way, given by Nine Melbourne’s news director Hugh Nailon, after Georgie Purcell pointed out online that “having my body and outfit photoshopped by a media outlet was not on my bingo card”, also pointing out that such an editing job wouldn’t happen to a male MP.

“Our graphics department sourced an online image of Georgie to use in our story on duck hunting,” Nailon said.

“As is common practice, the image was resized to fit our specs. During that process, the automation by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original. This did not meet the high editorial standards we have and for that we apologise to Ms Purcell unreservedly.”

Nailon also said no humans were involved in the process. Exactly how the robots want it.

Adobe, who programmed the robots, denied that Photoshop’s new artificial intelligence tools are actually this advanced. Yet.

“Any changes to this image would have required human intervention and approval,” an Adobe spokesperson said – although as Dr. Mumbo didn’t actually see this spokesperson type the actual words, we cannot prove it wasn’t a robot covering his own tracks.

Sounds just like what a robot would say. Human intervention and approval.

In fact, we have uncovered evidence of meddling robots doing similar things like this for the past 35 years.

Back in 1989, robots looked like this.

They may look primitive, but the one on the left, ‘Dexter’, could actually mathematically calculate the compatibility of two human dating-show contestants, so his programming was pretty advanced even back then.

So were the robots’ image manipulation skills.

Take the below issue of TV Guide, and the complete decapitation job they’ve done on Oprah Winfrey, who was at the time the most powerful human on Earth.

Hang on though.

Photoshop first came to market in 1990. This image was published in 1989, so we can’t actually blame the robots for this one.

This must have been… humans.

Perhaps human intervention is possible in the case of the Georgie Purcell photos shown on Nine.

Maybe robots aren’t as powerful are we believe. Maybe news outlet can themselves bend the truth, without robot intervention? Is it — gulp! — the humans that are the one manipulating things? Who can we trust in this age?

I turned the only trusted source I could think of: ChatGPT, and asked it: “Is it artificial intelligence or human intelligence that is putting our politicians in crop tops?”

The reply was illuminating:

“As of my last knowledge update in January 2022, there is no indication that artificial intelligence is involved in the clothing choices of politicians. The decision to wear crop tops or any other clothing item is a personal choice made by individuals, including politicians, based on their own preferences, fashion trends, or cultural considerations.

“It’s essential to note that the decisions made by politicians regarding their clothing are typically influenced by personal style, societal norms, and the image they wish to project rather than artificial intelligence. If there have been developments in this regard since my last update, I would not be aware of them.”

The case remains open. Dr. Mumbo will keep you updated with developments in this regard.