AI Imagery. Creepy or Credible?
Imagine a world where for a modest fee, you get an AI-created image that looks real. No more expensive photo shoots or logistical nightmares—just a perfect image ready to go.
AI-generated content is poised to revolutionize advertising, bringing cost savings and convenience that’s hard to beat. But, and it’s a big but, we need to tread carefully.
A hot-off-the-press study explores how these synthetic faces impact charitable giving, and it’s not all smooth sailing.
When donors know a face is AI-generated, as in the image to the left, their willingness to donate drops.
This happens because there’s:
- Reduced Empathy: Knowing a face is fake reduces empathy. Empathy is a powerful driver of donations. When it’s lacking, so too are the donations.
- Reduced Emotion Perception: AI faces also make it harder for people to perceive the emotions they’re meant to convey, further dampening the emotional impact on empathy
- Reduced Guilt: Less empathy means less anticipatory guilt—the feeling that you should help to avoid feeling bad.
But the rules can change!
- Transparency & Motives. Being upfront about AI use can restore giving, when the reason is to protect the real person’s privacy or valuable resources. Talking about saving money doesn’t sit well with people.
- Disasters. When real images are hard to come by e.g. natural disasters people are more accepting of AI-generated ones. The urgency and need override the skepticism and AI images can be as effective as real ones.
Practical takeaways for charities considering AI Imagery
- Disclose when images are AI-generated and emphasize ethical reasons
- Avoid cost-cutting as a motive for AI imagery.
- Use in emergency situations
Kiki
2 responses to “AI Imagery. Creepy or Credible?”
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plus AI still cannot draw hands.
haha yes, that would definitely kill empathy. Still, there’s exponential growth in AI development, it should be able to produce decent human images soon enough.