Did Mark Carney's campaign use AI to boost crowd sizes? We investigated

In online posts that were collectively viewed hundreds of thousands of times, some social media users have claimed that a photo of a Mark Carney campaign event was AI-generated.

Several social media users claim the image, which shows an event held last week at the Pinnacle Hotel at the Pier in North Vancouver, was manipulated in order to create the impression that Carney was speaking in front of a larger crowd. Some users also relied on online AI detector tools that suggested the photo was created using artificial intelligence.

This isn't the only claim that politicians have manipulated images — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been the subject of similar false claims in the past — and experts say the growing sophistication of AI is causing people to be increasingly skeptical of online images and video.

The CBC's visual investigations team obtained the original Carney event image and found no evidence the shots were AI-generated or digitally altered beyond traditional lighting and colour correction techniques. A CBC News cameraperson was also present at the event. Accessing CBC's raw footage, which shows the entire rally, allows for a visual comparison with the campaign photo. 

Carney's campaign says the image was not created with AI.

"It is an authentic image from Mr. Carney's North Vancouver event, and we can confirm its accuracy," the campaign said in a statement.

Carney's campaign provided CBC News with the original photo, which contains metadata — behind-the-scenes information detailing everything from the type of camera used to the exact time the image was taken. In the CBC's footage of the event, the photographer is visible in the background at the precise time, and at an angle that fits with the image.

The controversy illustrates how recent advances in generative AI are causing people to increasingly default to doubting anything they see online, said Darren Linvill, co-director of the Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University in South Carolina.

"I think one of the biggest dangers here is not necessarily that the world is going to be full of fake things," he said, "but the simple fact that we won't believe the real things when they're right in front of us."

The Carney image is just the latest instance of claims that politicians have manipulated images. Late last year, several users claimed — in posts viewed tens of thousands of times — that Pierre Poilievre had photoshopped himself into an image at the Toronto Chinatown Festival.

But livestreamed footage shows the exact moment the photo was taken, and the perspective matches with the view at the location of the festival stage in Toronto.

WATCH | CBC footage of the Mark Carney campaign event:

CBC footage of Mark Carney event in North Vancouver

1 day ago

Duration 3:25

CBC News captured footage of Mark Carney speaking at a campaign event in North Vancouver on Feb. 12. Some social media users later claimed that photos of the event shared by the Carney campaign were AI-generated. Comparing the campaign photos to CBC footage of the event, CBC News has confirmed the photos were not manipulated by AI.

Odd hands, issue of perspective

Social media users also made various claims that parts of the Carney campaign image proved it was generated by AI.

For example, one user argued that the hand placement of a person on their phone and that attendees' faces had a "collage"-like nature indicated that they were AI-generated.

But comparing the photo with the CBC's raw footage showed that each of these people is real, and did attend the event. 

One user claimed a man seen behind Carney in the original photo had "no feet" and was holding a flag at an odd angle. But the man, wearing a white-and-beige checkered shirt with a distinctive strap over his shoulder, can be glimpsed in the raw CBC footage at different points during the speech.

Observers also took issue with a woman taking a photo in the foreground of the picture, arguing that the image on her screen did not match the scene around her. But zooming in on the picture shows that the backs of the heads of the people in front of her are visible on her screen, as well as the room's light fixtures, Carney, and some of the crowd behind him.

The mismatch is likely due to conflicting angles. The campaign photographer who took the original photo is above and behind the woman in question, on a riser, CBC footage shows.

Question of AI detector reliability 

Several social media users relied on online sites that purport to be able to identify — or at least provide some insight — on whether an image is AI-generated or not.

Those sites can provide accurate responses, said Linvill, but they aren't foolproof. He noted that sites will often provide a measure of probability about the veracity of an image, rather than a straight yes or no.

"Overall, they are fairly reliable. They're not perfect. They're certainly not 100 per cent," he said. "You're asking a computer to do something that you're not able to do yourself — of course that's going to be difficult."

CBC News ran the Carney campaign image through several free, online AI detectors. Five correctly identified the photo as real, or with a high likelihood of being real. Three said the image was likely AI-generated, and one was inconclusive.

Linville said training yourself to be able to spot fake images is something that will have to evolve along with the rapid advances in AI technology.

"Some of the things that maybe we could have relied on in the past, we can't always rely on now," he said. 

AI image generators have traditionally struggled to properly represent human hands, mouths and teeth, he says. While they're still not perfect, he notes the programs are improving now.

Linville says controversy over a photo like the one from the Carney event can arise from technical issues — like a wide, crowded shot of people who are not expecting to have their photo taken — but also from wider trends in how we deal with AI and our trust in information more broadly.

"Sometimes, people are biased," he said. "Just like computers aren't perfect, we're not perfect either."