A Maine police department inadvertently used AI photo editing software to alter drug evidence photos before posting them on social media, creating gibberish text and distorted features that drew public criticism.
The Westbrook Police Department in Maine posted an AI-altered photograph of drug evidence on their Facebook page following a drug bust on Brackett Street. An officer involved in the arrests took a photo of seized drug paraphernalia including a scale and white powder in plastic bags, then used a photo editing app to add the department's patch to the image. The app, later confirmed to be ChatGPT, unintentionally altered the packaging and other attributes in the photograph, creating gibberish text and hazy edges. The edited image was sent to a Facebook administrator who posted it without anyone realizing the extent of the alterations. Social media users quickly criticized the image's obvious AI-generated artifacts. Initially, Westbrook police denied using AI to generate the photo, but eventually confirmed their use of ChatGPT after investigation by the Portland Press Herald. The department issued a public apology on Tuesday, sharing a side-by-side comparison of the original and edited images, explaining they never intended to alter the evidence and didn't realize the photo editing app would substantially change the photograph. They acknowledged this as a valuable lesson learned and invited news media to view the original evidence to demonstrate its authenticity.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.