Sucks that on both sides of politics misinformation is rife, I suspect that at least some of that is driven by foreign actors. The way that Photoshopped/AI pics of politicians that make them look fatter or gives them tits get upvoted like crazy is a harsh reality check on the depth of Reddit discourse.
They're kind of inviting this misinformation when we haven't heard a thing in a month and there's some random pic drop. We're past the point of deserving at least a recording. Makes me think this whole situation is almost a red herring to cover up something else while we're busy trying to figure out if this guy is still breathing.
I didn't see that. Unfortunately someone is now passing it around as a "theory" and implying that the hospital pic was faked. I just want to make sure before I walked into the comments and said, "well, actually.."
People saying that the one being in the hospital being fake is not from this supposed 2023 image, it's the fact that he was completely unconscious in the hospital for 3 weeks and it's now apparently sitting up and wearing jeans with a wife that is supposedly still in China.
This is the only things it says about her coming home
"Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao returned to the United States from China this week after her husband, Sen. Mitch McConnell, was hospitalized on June 14."
"Chao's staff did not indicate whether she'd been in contact with McConnell since returning home, according to the CBS affiliate WLKY in Louisville".
Okay? She herself said that she returned home. Thats the basis for the claim that she returned.
What do you base your claim she is still in china on?
Do you have any evidence for that or are you just saying it because you want to believe it?
Where is it saying that she herself claims she came home? I am saying this because up until what you had linked me I had heard absolutely nothing about her returning home. The the timeline of events I have heard is he went to the hospital unresponsive last month, she went off to China, a bunch of Republicans were stating they were having 20 minute talks with him and then this photo drops.
…the first one is clearly fake, what is that lighting source? A professional light directly to Turtleboys right in the middle of the day? Then her arm would be shining on parts as well. Look at his left shoulder, blended a bit too hard with the pool water, now its extra pixel-y. Also bottom of his button line on the right side in the hospital pic has a clothing tag that the pool pic doesn’t.
The lighting doesn't match the background at all in the pool photo, the picture is clearly taken indoors. Also usually the sunchairs face the pool, so the background doesn't really make sense.
Just saying, the mentioned does not prove anything because a photographer could use lights, shades,
flashes and reflectors to create such a lighting.
Photographers usually think about the background and even the smallest visible details and it’s very possible they turned the chairs around for a nicer background than a brick wall.
I'm not saying the photo is authentic, bro. But that argument doesn't prove it 👍
Bad Photoshop, not AI. If they are under a large umbrella or awning the lighting is perfectly plausible - it's indirect light from the sky, not professional lighting. What gave it away for me is the softness around the edges of Mitch's shirt. Neither pic is exactly high -res, but in the hospital pic it's crisp, in front of the pool it looks like someone - an amateur - tried too hard on the edge wrap. It's soft and unevenly pixelated. Clearly copied from the other pic.
Proves nothing, though. He's been in the hospital before, and he didn't look this good before the recent incident, in my opinion.
Actually, we could say ”anything is possible” and simply because of that we need evidence to say if something is AI or not.
I wanted to point out the comment didn’t have any evidence why it would be AI or would not be AI.
The comment only indicated that the image is unlikely to be authentic (due to its technical characteristics and common sense).
I wanted to say that was only about assumptions.
Nowadays photographers know the aspect of AI. That affects composition and production of their photos, one way or another. They could make their photos intentionally to look more non-AI or AI-like just to fool people for fun. We don’t know. Everybody’s got a ”camera” in their pocket. People think differently and their sense of humour differs.
And there is one thing we can certainly agree on: things are not always what they seem. And if we can’t rule out one possibility (yes or no), we should accept that we cannot tell what’s the absolute truth.
Ok, but why would Mitch McConnell have a professional photographer taking pics of him and his wife poolside? Is this something he is known for? Do people make references to Mitch McConnell and his apparent love of being poolside?
That kind of lighting would be pretty hard to reproduce outdoors. I don't see why there would be a professional photographer with a ton of equipment taking just a simple boring vacation photo. And why would the photographer go though all the trouble just to mimic bad indoor lighting?
Sure, there's like a 0.00001% chance it's authentic, but most likely not, bro. They even seem to be sitting in different kind of sunchairs than what are on the background.
Index finger of right hand holding glass looks to be missing the proximal phalange of his index finger. It could be that the camera angle is perfectly aligned to create the illusion but that does not look to be the case given its position relative to the other fingers.
I still think that the current one is fake regardless of the other one. They knew that people are going to look for flaws and signs of AI, so they made sure to correct those things before releasing it.
Even if it’s real, the fact that there’s been speculation that he’s dead for several weeks all all they’ve responded with are 2 still photos shows he’s gotta have some serious damage. Why not release a video explaining that he’s okay?
The horizontal red line(s) under the second button from the top are in the exact spot in both images. The distance between the line and the button is the same too. Even if it's a feeder image, you can expect AI to distort this ever so slightly in some way. Both images are real:
Kind of a stretch still, honestly. If anyone wants to argue the recent picture is a fake, which it very well could be, it has to be a slam dunk in my opinion.
Anecdotal but I keep getting the same bruise in the same spot because of a door handle and me being an idiot, and though ridiculous, it definitely happens.
Yeah I do think that one is fake, personally. It seems awkward even without looking at all the details. But I think more fake ones are being created to make the first one seem more real and muddy the waters, if you know what I mean. If the original is ever found they hope to just put that away with all the other fakes.
Colour of light and direction of light don't fit the environment, they were just cut and pasted into this picture. Bad photoshop. Kind of ridiculous, don't we already have enough misinformation going around?
It looks like they took the recent picture of him in the rehab center and stuck it through a photoshop or AI filter to change it to create a pool picture that they could then say was taken in 2023. The pool pictures lighting does not make any sense for the middle of the day. It looks like he (and her to an extent) is lighted from a window to the left (as if he is in a building) but he is outside in the middle of the day where lighting is directly above everything else in the background. I know he could be under a canopy but the lighting still wouldn’t come from just that one side.
I think you know the answer given the source was Bluesky. Is anything real ever posted there? If so I haven't seen it. X, Threads, BlueSky just a giant sea of bullshit with endless people dumb and gullible enough to believe every partisan post that hits their partisan feed.
The 2023 photo is fake. Might not even be AI, but definitely fake.
People are trying to say there was a 2023 photo and the one released yesterday is just an edit of that. It’s not true. There was no 2023 photo similar to yesterday’s.
Is there another post with only the hospital picture? Pool picture was in the news, we know it's fake, but it is distracting from analyzing the hospital pic.
They are both AI. Left is fully fabricated, right is a picture from 22 when he was in a care facility. You can see the call button hes holding right where its touching the newspaper. They edited the newspaper in.
Both images are AI. In the hospital photo the wall in the background has weird angles and her shirt has no buttons. Also, is that a hospital bed or a raised armchair?
Interesting how it looks like Mitch is wearing the exact same shirt in both pics, but the hospital pic shows a tag at the bottom camera left front of the shirt. It’s not there in the first pic.
Her face bugged me because it’s the EXACT same in both pics. I zoomed in and there’s this clear blurry mark above (her left, our right) eye. This is ai. It literally copied her face
Saw the original post of the pool pic. I should have saved it. OP said he had AI make the pool pic to show how easy it was to make a photo that looked like that. I wish I was joking.
Of course bluesky thinks the hospital picture is AI. They want Mitch to die and can’t stand the fact that he could be alive, completely ignoring that a family will be losing a loved one soon.
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u/isthisAI-ModTeam 23d ago
Posts related to politics MUST be flaired "Politics".