Is Trump doctoring his pics? Xi airport photo carries signs of AI touch-ups

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the visual.

Trump is known to litter his Truth Social feed with obvious AI-generated images and memes, but the doctoring of a genuine media event is at odds with his outspoken hatred for “fake news”.

A Getty Image of the red-carpet pc shows Trump grimacing at the sound of a flyover and, crucially, wearing two gloves, Photo / Getty ImagesThe Truth Social photo has a less embarrassing facial expression, which may be explained as a different image, but Trump’s second glove is missing

Apart from the obvious missing grimace, the image also shows Trump wearing one glove. News agency photos and videos show him wearing two gloves at all times.

Matthew Stamm, a media forensics expert at Drexel University, told AFP his analysis of the image using specialised software “identified traces left by generative AI with high confidence”.

He said these statistical traces were akin to “fingerprints that a criminal leaves at a crime scene”.

Walter Scheirer, another expert at the University of Notre Dame, agreed AI was likely involved.

He said: “Given the existence of multiple versions of this scene, including a set of originals available via Getty Images that are clearly different from what President Trump posted to Truth Social, I am confident that this image has been altered.”

The episode highlights the rapid growth of AI-generated fakes in politics, with even high-stakes diplomatic events now subject to manipulation by the very leaders participating in them.

After Trump travelled to Beijing in May for a summit with Xi, he posted a doctored image meant to show his predecessor Joe Biden confused with the Chinese president.

Scheirer said: “Sometimes these edits are innocuous. In other cases, the interpretation of the photo completely changes in a manner more akin to propaganda.”

– AFP