It should be. All computational photography has zero business being used in court
Comment on A bride to be discovers a reality bending mistake in Apple's computational photography
e0qdk@kbin.social 7 months ago
This story may be amusing, but it's actually a serious issue if Apple is doing this and people are not aware of it because cellphone imagery is used in things like court cases. Relative positions of people in a scene really fucking matter in those kinds of situations. Someone's photo of a crime could be dismissed or discredited using this exact news story as an example -- or worse, someone could be wrongly convicted because the composite produced a misleading representation of the scene.
curiousaur@reddthat.com 7 months ago
ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
All digital photography is computational. I think the word your looking for is composite, not computational.
NotSoCoolWhip@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Unless the dude is saying only film should be admissible, which doesn’t sound all that bad.
ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
Film is also subject to manipulation in the development stage, even if you avoid compositing e.g. dodging and burning. Photographic honesty is an open and active philosophic debate that has been going on since its inception. It’s not like you can really draw a line in the sand and blanketly say admissible or not. Although I’m sure established guidelines would help. Ultimately, it’s an argument about the validity of evidence that needs to be made on a case by case basis. The manipulations involved need to be fully identified and accounted for in those discussions.
Decoy321@lemmy.world 7 months ago
We might be exaggerating the issue here. Fallibility has always been an issue with court evidence. Analog photos can be doctored too.
curiousaur@reddthat.com 7 months ago
Sure, but smartphones now automatically doctor every photo you take. Someone who took the photo could not even know it was doctored and think it represents truth.
Decoy321@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fair point, but I still think we’re exaggerating the amount of doctoring that’s being done by the phones. There’s always been some level of discrepancy between real life subjects and the images taken of them.
It’s just a tool creating media from sensor data. Those sensors aren’t the same as our eyes, and their processors don’t hold a candle to our own brains.
In the interest of not rambling, let’s look back at early black and white cameras. When people looked at those photos, did they assume the world was black and white? Or did they acknowledge this as a characteristic of the camera?
Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 months ago
With all the image manipulation and generation tools available to even amateurs, I’m not sure how any photography is admissible as evidence these days.
At some point there’s going to have to be a whole bunch of digital signing (and timestamp signatures) going on inside the camera for things to be even considered.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 months ago
I’m still waiting for the first time somebody uses it to zoom in on a car number plate and it helpfully fills it in with some AI bullshit with something else entirely.
We’ve already seen such a thing with image compression.
ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This was important in the Kyle Rittenhouse case. The zoom resolution was interpolated by software. It wasn’t AI per se, but the fact that a jury couldn’t be relied upon to understand a black box algorithm and its possible artifacts, the zoomed video was disallowed.
(this in no way implies that I agree with the court.)
rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The zoom resolution was interpolated by software. It wasn’t AI per se
Except it was. All the “AI” junk being hyped and peddled all over the place as a completely new and modern innovation is really just the same old interpolation by software, albeit software which is fueled by bigger databases and with more computing power thrown at it.
It’s all just flashier autocorrect.
ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As far as I know, nothing about AI entered into arguments. No precedents regarding AI could have been set here. Therefore, this case wasn’t about AI per se.
I did bring it up as relevant because, as you say, AI is just an over-hyped black box. But that’s my opinion, with no case law to cite (ianal). So to say that a court would or should feel that AI and fancy photoediting is the same thing is misleading. I know that wasn’t your point, but it was part of mine.
wagoner@infosec.pub 7 months ago
I watched that whole court exchange live, and it helped the defendant’s case that the judge was computer illiterate.
ook_the_librarian@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As it usually does. But the court’s ineptitude should favor the defense. It shouldn’t be an arrow in a prosecutor’s quiver, at least.
Jarix@lemmy.world 6 months ago
This isn’t an issue at all it’s a bullshit headline. And it worked.
This is the result of shooting in panorama mode.
In other news, the sky is blue
Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Like, an episode of Bones or some shit.
falkerie71@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I see your point, though I wouldn’t put it that far. It’s an edge case that has to happen in a very short duration.
Similar effects can be acheived with traditional cameras with rolling shutter.
If you’re only concerned of relative positions of different people during a time frame, I don’t think you need to be that worried. Being aware of it is enough.
Odelay42@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I think Apple is “filming” over the course of the seconds you have the camera open, and uses the press of the shutter button to select a specific shit from the hundreds of frames that have been taken as video. Then, some algorithm appears to be assembling different portions of those shots into one “best” shot.
It’s not just a mechanical shutter effect.
falkerie71@sh.itjust.works 7 months ago
I’m aware of the differences. I’m just pointing out that similar phenomenon and discussions have been made since rolling shutter artifacts have been a thing. It still only takes milliseconds for an iPhone to finish taking it’s plethora of photos to composite. For the majority of forensic use cases, it’s a non issue imo. People don’t move that quick to change relative positions substantially irl.
Odelay42@lemmy.world 7 months ago
Did you look at the example in the article? It’s clearly not milliseconds. It’s several whole seconds.
PoolloverNathan@programming.dev 7 months ago
A specific shit?
Odelay42@lemmy.world 7 months ago
😎